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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28797414">Nothing Gold Can Stay</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheekysstyles/pseuds/cheekysstyles'>cheekysstyles</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Gymnastics, Alternate Universe - No Powers, And mint chocolate chip, And pineapple on pizza, Bucky Barnes Is a Good Bro, Coach!Wade, Confrontation with the abuser, Flash Thompson Being A Jerk, Gymnast!Peter, He turns eighteen before anything happens with Wade, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Irondad &amp; Spiderson, M/M, Men's Artistic Gymnastics, Miles Morales Is a Good Bro, No Smut, Panic Attacks, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker is Tony Stark's Biological Child, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, Peter is Seventeen at the beginning of this, Skip Westcott - Freeform, Slow Burn, Stick It AU, The author does not share his views, Wade makes fun of butter pecan ice cream, like the slowest</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 09:07:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>30,019</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28797414</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheekysstyles/pseuds/cheekysstyles</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A year and a half ago, sixteen year old gymnastics prodigy Peter Parker left in the middle of the World Championship competition, costing Team USA a chance at a medal. After one too many run-ins with the law, Peter gets an ultimatum: return to the sport he left behind or end up in juvenile detention. </p><p>When he arrives at X-Force Gymnastics, an elite gym owned by Wade Wilson, Peter is unprepared to rediscover his love for the sport and to confront the very thing that made him quit in the first place.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Peter Parker/Wade Wilson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>140</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Spideypool Big Bang - The 2020 Collection</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Calm Before the Storm</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Wowwww alright folks. I made it. There were quite a few times while writing this I didn't think it would ever see the light of day, and I have a ton of people to thank for that fact that it's here.</p><p>First, I'd like to thank my cheerreaders. I had some early-in-the-process cheerers that really helped me get this thing rolling and let me know that at least a couple people didn't think this was a dumpster fire. So a big thank you to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tsukiwolf42">TsukiWolf</a> and <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/actionpackedlips/pseuds/actionpackedlips">actionpackedlips</a> for helping me get this off the ground! I had <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atemluver/pseuds/Atemluver">Atem</a> come in as a late cheerreader in my ending stages of writing. She also helped me add some visual details, so a big thank you for that!</p><p>Next I'd like to thank my amazing artist, aquamerryne! They made beautiful art for this story that I'm so excited to share with you all. You can give them a follow <a href="https://twitter.com/aquamerryne">here</a> on Twitter, or <a href="https://instagram.com/aquamerryne?igshid=yoqb6zic5487">here</a> on Instagram! Make sure to give them some love.</p><p>Lastly, I need to thank my alpha, my beta, and my friend <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/yenyen/pseuds/Jennicide">Jennicide</a>. This fic quite literally would not exist without her. She listened to me whine about it for literal months, and then she painstakingly spent the time to make sure it was actually readable. I'm sure she's reading this acknowledgement right now cringing at my poor use of commas and complete lack of basic grammar skills. She helped me get this fic off the ground from a simple comment of "I'm watching Stick It and I think Peter would be a great gymnast" and turn it into this. So thank you for helping to keep me motivated and for helping me work through many, many parts of this story.</p><p>I've tried to link most of the gymnastics moves I reference. But I've also appropriated some moves and used them for my own purposes. I tried to be as accurate as possible, but if you're a huge gymnastics nerd and see any inconsistencies, let's just all pretend they don't exist.</p><p>Finally, there are some trigger warnings in this story. I've kept them somewhat vague as it's a driving plot point throughout. If you'd like more details, feel free to message me privately. There is also a detailed note about it at the end of the very last chapter.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
  </p>
</div><p>The sharp staccato of a gavel reverberated throughout the courtroom.</p><p>"Peter Benjamin Parker, you have been accused of the crime of breaking and entering as well as vandalism of private property. Based on the evidence, the court is aware that you did not act alone. Should you choose to protect the anonymity of your accomplices, be aware that you are then subject to receive a non-lenient sentence."</p><p>Peter stared balefully at the judge from his seat, resolutely silent. He heard his father clear his throat behind him and ignored that, too. It was typical of his luck that he’d been the only one caught when the alarm had gone off, urging MJ and Gwen out ahead of him and promising to cause a distraction so they could get away. And they had. Peter, on the other hand, was now sitting here in court with a very unamused judge staring him down with cold eyes.</p><p>“Mr. Parker, let me assure you, juvenile detention is not as exciting as it sounds. You are aware that you and your accomplices caused well over ten thousand dollars in damage to the Empire State University science laboratory?”</p><p>Peter bit his lip hard enough to refrain from blurting out the first thought in his head—ten thousand dollars was pocket change to his father. As annoyed as he was at the present situation, he didn’t actually want to go to juvie. All things considered, Peter was a little surprised it was only ten grand. MJ, Gwen, and himself had snuck into the ESU science labs earlier that week in the middle of the night. Gwen had been going on and on about some research she was doing, how she was positive one of the professors had stolen it. She then enlisted his and MJ’s help to investigate, despite the fact that Peter didn’t actually attend college with them. </p><p>When Peter still hadn’t spoken several moments later, the judge sighed and set the paper down in front of her.</p><p>“In light of your refusal to explain the situation or name your accomplices, your father has agreed to subsidize two options in lieu of you being placed in juvenile detention.” Peter sat up a little straighter, more interested now than he had been before. He’d assumed his dad was just going to pay them off like the last three or four times Peter had decided the law didn’t apply to him. The famous Tony Stark had more than enough money to spare. “You can either go to the New York Military Academy, or,” the judge paused, eyebrows furrowing as she read something in front of her, “Something called XFG.”</p><p>“New York Military Academy,” was out of Peter’s mouth before the judge had even finished speaking.</p><p>“XFG it is.” Peter’s entire body went rigid even as he told himself to relax. That wasn’t what he’d said.</p><p>“Your honor, I said—”</p><p>“Yes, I heard you. A court-appointed social worker will take you home to collect your things and then drive you there. You’re dismissed,” she said, barely sparing Peter a glance. The judge wouldn’t actually send him to XFG; his <em> dad </em> wouldn’t actually send him, right? Not after what had happened a year and a half ago. Not when Peter—</p><p>The thought was interrupted when a hand came down on his shoulder. Peter flinched and jerked away from the unexpected touch as he jumped out of his seat, sending it toppling over. He turned to find Tony frowning at him, the offending hand still reaching out where Peter had just been. Several people in the courtroom turned in the direction of the noise. He met his father’s gaze, chest heaving as his pulse rang a little too loudly in his ears. Tony’s eyes were always too expressive, always a little too judgmental when things weren’t exactly as he thought they should be. Now was no different, Peter noted; they were a little confused and a lot disappointed. Clearly making a silent decision, Tony sighed, retracting his hand and shoving it in his pocket.</p><p>“Let’s go home. You’ve got to pack.”</p><p>------</p><p>The social worker pulled up in front of the ostentatious building that held the penthouse Peter and Tony called home. She seemed nice enough and had tried to engage Peter in conversation a couple times while stuck in Manhattan traffic, but he was still too tense at the idea of being sent to XFG to respond. Placing the car in park, she smiled sympathetically at Peter.</p><p>“Feel free to take your time getting your things together. It’s about a two and a half hour drive to Poughkeepsie. I’ll wait here for you.”</p><p>Peter made eye contact to acknowledge he’d heard her, but remained silent as he undid his seatbelt and climbed out of the car. Being deemed a <em> ‘flight risk’ </em> had warranted him an escort both to his Dad’s penthouse to collect his things and all the way to middle-of-nowhere-Poughkeepsie, New York, home of exactly nothing other than X-Force Gymnastics and a McDonald’s. At least, that’s all Peter knew. He was a little miffed at his new label, but it also meant he didn’t have to ride home with Tony. Part of him was holding out hope that they arrived before his father so Peter could get his things and leave without conversing about things he didn’t want to, but he knew that was just wishful thinking. It wasn’t even that Peter and Tony didn’t get along, because they did, or they had until a year and a half ago when Peter returned home from Switzerland too early and without an explanation other than “I quit.” Tony took the news only slightly better than the rest of Peter’s team, which wasn’t very well at all. Peter thought he’d been clear when he’d told his dad he wasn’t ever going to compete again.</p><p>“Welcome home, Peter,” JARVIS’s disembodied voice greeted as he stepped into the elevator. Before he could even reach out, the button lit up for the penthouse and the doors slid closed. “Your father has asked to be alerted upon your arrival.”</p><p>Groaning, Peter leaned back against the wall of the elevator and watched the numbers steadily climb.</p><p>When Peter was three, his parents passed away. He didn’t remember them dying. Other than a couple of pictures he kept framed on his desk, Peter didn’t really remember Mary and Richard Parker at all. Peter ended up on Tony’s doorstep a week after their death with a backpack containing a small blue blanket, two letters written by his mother, a child-sized suitcase that was more empty than full, and a purple stuffed dinosaur that had seen better days. It had been his mom’s best friend who had taken him to Tony at Mary’s request. Peter vaguely remembered when Tony had opened the door, looked the pair of them up and down, and said flatly, “Who the hell are you?”</p><p>The details after that were even fuzzier, but one of the two letters Mary had written had explained that Peter was the result of a one night stand. She’d never intended for Tony to meet him, but in the unlikely event of her and Richard’s deaths, Mary’s will insisted Peter meet his biological father. Likely, she’d wanted to make sure Peter was taken care of financially, as even fourteen years ago Stark had been a household name.</p><p>It hadn’t been an easy transition for Peter or Tony. Peter was used to the constant loving attention and care Mary and Richard had given him, but Tony had never cared for anything other than himself and his liquor cabinet. Tony had never let Peter read the first letter she’d left, and so he’d stopped asking about it a couple of years ago; whatever was in it was compelling enough that Tony hadn’t dropped Peter off at the nearest orphanage the day he’d arrived. </p><p>And, against all odds, Tony <em> had </em> stepped up. He’d hired more nannies than Peter would ever remember the names of to handle the majority of Peter’s care, and he’d adjusted his life around his newly discovered son as best as he knew how. When Peter was old enough to understand, Tony had delivered Mary’s second letter, addressed to Peter, and given him the option to choose whether he wanted to keep his mother’s last name or change his legal name to Stark. Upon Peter’s decision to remain a Parker in his mother’s honor (and, if he was totally honest, for the illusion of anonymity it offered him), Tony had flown them to Italy for a week to celebrate the decision.</p><p>Despite the many ways Tony was a great father, he was also still <em> Tony, </em> so Peter was entirely unsurprised to find him leaning back on the large leather couch in the middle of their living room, drink in hand, as the elevator doors opened and JARVIS announced his arrival. Peter ignored the silent question when Tony raised his eyebrows and cocked his head, turning and heading straight for his room.</p><p>“Peter,” Tony tried from his place on the couch. Peter pretended he didn’t hear him, shoving his door open with a bit more force than was actually necessary.  It crashed into the dresser behind it, knocking over several trophies currently being used as clothing racks. One, a tiny gold-plated man on a pommel horse with one leg raised in the air, toes perfectly pointed, tumbled to the ground and missed Peter’s foot by inches. The top separated from the base on impact. Scowling, Peter reached for the edge of his door and swung it shut behind him, hoping to drag out his time packing for as long as possible while also avoiding a talk with Tony.</p><p>There was no slam of the door as Tony moved into the room behind him, jostling his drink and wearing an expression that matched Peter’s. “You know how I feel about slamming doors,” was all he had to say, switching the glass to his other hand and shaking the spilled alcohol off.</p><p>Peter continued to ignore him, walking into his oversized closet in search of his duffel bag. The inside of the closet was a haphazard mess of clothes; there were three different piles on the ground and several of the jackets were hanging half off their hangers. It complemented the mess outside his closet well. </p><p>His room had once been a shrine to all of his accomplishments, all the meets he’d won and the medals he’d brought home, ribbons for when he’d learned a new skill as a child, trophies from competitions, and that evidence was still here. Medals hung from his wall, but the hooks they’d been placed on were now covered in hoodies and hats. Several of the tiny gold gymnast figures were separated from their bases, much like the one still on the floor, or being repurposed to hold something else. Nearly every poster Peter had on his wall that included some of his idols, or his old teammates, or himself, were scribbled on akin to what Peter imagined normal high school-issued textbooks looked like. Thirteen years of his life had been a difficult thing to erase, even if the memories of it still left a sour taste in his mouth.</p><p>Barely six months after Peter had arrived on Tony’s doorstep, his dad had enrolled him in the local gymnastics academy because “if you’re going to climb on everything and do double backflips off my couch, you’d better do it properly.” It had been a way to keep Peter occupied and burn off some excess energy. Neither Tony nor Peter had expected the way he’d take to the sport and how quickly he’d become good at it. Just after his sixth birthday, one of Peter’s coaches reached out to an elite gym an hour outside the city to tell them about Peter. The owner hadn’t wasted any time contacting Tony to suggest Peter come and train there. Thus, Peter’s career training for elite gymnastics had begun.</p><p>That was over now, of course. Walking out of the World Championships in the middle of the team event finals tended to have that effect on a career.</p><p>“Peter,” Tony called him again, standing in the doorway to the closet. “Are you seriously going to give me the silent treatment the whole time you’re here? Not even going to bother to say goodbye?” His tone was more antagonistic than interested, and Peter didn’t take the bait at first. Instead, he continued packing, shoving unfolded hoodies and t-shirts into the duffel. His dad waited for him to finish stomping through the closet and try to leave before Tony moved to block the doorway and speak again. “What did you think was going to happen? You were going to just keep doing whatever you wanted without consequences?”</p><p>“What would you know about consequences?” Peter snapped back. The Stark name was a famous one, and it hadn’t become that way just because of Tony’s inventions. No, Starks had been famous long before even Peter or Tony were born. All it took was a quick Google search to discover his dad hadn’t exactly been an angel growing up either. In fact, compared to him, Peter practically <em> was </em> an angel. He hadn’t been the one to make headlines for his spectacular prowess with the ladies or because he’d been too drunk and told the right reporter the wrong thing at the wrong time, on more than one occasion. Peter also hadn’t had a child out of wedlock he didn’t know existed for three years. Tony tended to ignore those things when Peter was the one getting in trouble, though. </p><p>“I know I told you if you were going to quit something that’s been your dream for over a decade, you had to go to school and get a degree. I know I told you that you weren’t just going to get a free pass to do whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted,” he said, raising his eyebrows and lifting a finger off his glass to point at Peter. “I know I raised you a hell of a lot better than all this.”</p><p>“Move,” was all Peter said. When Tony didn’t move, Peter lifted his gaze to glare at him.</p><p>“What’s going on with you, Pete?” Tony’s tone was softer now, but Peter was too wound up to back down now. He’d decided a year and a half ago that he wasn’t willing to do what it took to compete at an elite level of gymnastics anymore.</p><p>“This is all stupid! No one wants me back there; I don’t want to go back there, and ten thousand dollars is just a nice bottle of booze to you.” He tried to move around Tony, but his dad didn’t budge.</p><p>“Maybe ten thousand was just a nice bottle of booze when you took a joy ride and destroyed my car,” Tony started, eyes hardening with resolve as he realized Peter wasn’t going to cooperate. “Or what about the time I bailed you out of jail after you were at a party you had no business being at, getting drunk and—”</p><p>“I already told you, I wasn’t drunk! I was holding MJ’s cup.”</p><p>“It doesn’t matter, Peter! MJ’s not the one who was in jail, was she? She’s not the one whose name we had to pay to keep out of the tabloids, is she?” Peter scowled, folding his arms across his chest. He <em> hadn’t </em> been drunk, but the cop hadn’t cared. Tony wasn’t done yet. “And MJ wasn’t the one who resisted arrest and kicked a police officer, was she?”</p><p>“I wasn’t a truant!” he snapped quickly. They’d had this argument more than once after the cop had tried to arrest him for skipping school, despite the fact that Peter had graduated well over a year ago thanks to some very expensive private tutors and the homeschooling he’d done to maintain his training schedule at the gym. Tony raised his eyebrows, as unimpressed with the excuse this time as he’d been every other time it came up.</p><p>Taking a deep breath to focus, Peter tried to relax the tension in his shoulders and stared at his dad imploringly.</p><p>“Don’t send me to XFG,” he said, his voice now much quieter than it had been. “Please.” Things were bad enough when he trained at Gold West Gymnastics Academy, and that had been when Peter was still close enough to commute. Poughkeepsie was so far outside of Manhattan that Peter would have to stay at the boarding house there, likely a purposeful choice on Tony’s part to make sure he didn’t take off or get into more trouble with Gwen and MJ.</p><p>“I don’t know what you want me to say, Peter,” Tony said, finally moving out of the door frame and allowing Peter to exit the closet. “I don’t know what to do with you anymore. You won’t listen to me, and you refuse to tell me what’s going on. I thought we’d skipped the teenage rebellion phase.” Sighing emphatically, Tony pressed his forefinger and thumb to the bridge of his nose. He followed the action with a long drink, watching Peter continue to move throughout his room and shove things into his duffel bag. Peter wasn’t sure why he thought appealing to Tony would work. He’d never cared if it came between Peter and being a star, no matter the cost.</p><p>“Well, I thought we’d skipped the shitty father phase the first three years of my life,” Peter snapped back while yanking the zipper across his bag, struggling a little when it jammed in the middle. </p><p>“That’s not fair,” Tony began, anger coloring his tone, but Peter had grabbed his cell phone and charger off his nightstand to make his way back to the elevator. He already felt guilty about what he’d said because he <em> knew </em> it wasn’t fair; Tony hadn’t known he’d existed those three years, but Peter was frustrated and angry too. His dad was just the closest target. “Peter, just wait—”</p><p>Peter pushed the button of the elevator several times, in rapid succession, until JARVIS politely asked him to stop. When the doors finally opened, he hurried to step inside and avoid his dad reaching for him. Tony jammed his arm in between the elevator doors to keep them from closing.</p><p>“Peter,” he started again. The drink was no longer in his other hand, but Peter wasn’t sure when he’d abandoned it.</p><p>“What?” Peter’s tone was cold and clipped, and he saw the hurt he felt reflected in Tony’s eyes. Like father, like son, he thought bitterly. Tony sighed and visibly deflated, abandoning whatever he’d intended to say. Peter gritted his teeth as the guilt settled deeper in his stomach.</p><p>“Just… Be safe.” The words felt unfinished, but Tony wasn’t offering up any more. Peter was too frustrated to make it easier for him. They stared at each other for a long moment before Peter shrugged.</p><p>“Sure, dad.” </p><p>Hesitating only a second longer, Tony removed his arm with a final sigh. Peter held his gaze until the doors slid fully shut, and he was left glaring at himself in the reflection.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Don't You Know Who I Think I Am?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The drive was both agonizingly slow and over too quickly. Peter did a poor job of keeping up small talk with the social worker; she gave up after about twenty minutes, turning up the radio to fill the silence. Peter barely remembered saying goodbye to her when he got out of the car. Overwhelmed didn’t feel like it was a big enough word for what he felt staring up at the front of the gym. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>From the outside, the building wasn’t anything special. It had the same large, warehouse-style feel all gyms had. The building was made of brick on the outside, but it had been painted over in black. Whoever had done it was either not terribly particular, or they’d done it a long time ago because the ruddy color of the original brick showed through in more than one spot. There were two entrances on the side of the building Peter was facing. One was a single glass door that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned, ever. Fifteen feet to his right was a set of double doors, only slightly more sanitary in appearance. Above the glass double door entrance, in large red lettering that also looked hand-painted, was the name X-Force Gymnastics. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was a far cry from his old gym where everything had been pristine and professionally maintained. By contrast, everything about X-Force Gymnastics looked second-hand. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Adjusting the strap of his duffel more securely over his shoulder, Peter squared his shoulders and pushed open the single door in front of him, ending up directly on the gym floor rather than in the lobby. He was immediately greeted with sounds as familiar to him as his own voice—the rebound off the floor as a gymnast tumbled across it, the squeak of the bars, smacks of flesh on a mat when someone missed a release, the repetitive lifting and placing of hands on a pommel horse. Though his apprehension about being here was still at the forefront of his thoughts, Peter was surprised to find the noise of being inside a gym again went a long way in calming his nerves. That calm was quickly interrupted by another familiar, though far less welcome, voice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What the hell are you doing here?” Flash Thompson called out from across the gym, causing every person that hadn’t noticed Peter’s entrance initially to stop and stare directly at him. The soundtrack of the gym died out as everyone realized just who had entered. If looks could kill, Peter would have been back on Tony’s doorstep in a body bag.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He </span>
  <em>
    <span>had</span>
  </em>
  <span> told Tony no one was going to want him here.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Contemplating his chances of escaping back out the door in which he’d entered, Peter’s plans were cut short when a tall black woman with a patch of vitiligo around her left eye stepped between him and said door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wouldn’t,” she said, not unkindly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Before Peter had any longer to decide whether or not he could get around the woman, Flash was fast approaching and drawing more attention to Peter. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"This is a gym for elite gymnasts who want to win medals, not for washed up hacks who blow a World Championship meet because they’re pouting,” Flash interrupted, suddenly in front of Peter and the woman. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What would you know about winning medals or World Championships?” Peter asked. He glanced at the woman again out of the corner of his eye. She was frowning at both of them but still firmly blocking Peter’s escape through the door. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know I wouldn’t get invited just to choke in front of the entire world,” Flash taunted, moving further into Peter’s space. He wanted to laugh because Flash getting invited to World’s was a joke, but the words hit a nerve more than Peter wanted to admit. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter clenched his fists, shifting towards Flash, when someone else appeared between the two of them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s enough. Flash, go do your conditioning,” the tall man directed, watching until Flash begrudgingly complied. Turning back to Peter, he smiled in greeting. “If it isn’t the famous Peter Parker.” Instead of responding, Peter stared slack-jawed at the man in front of him. His entire face was a patchwork of scars, and the bits of skin that peeked out from under his loose black t-shirt and athletic shorts were just as mottled. There were stories about the head coach and owner of X-Force Gymnastics. Wade Wilson had been an up-and-coming prodigy in his own right several years ago, but a freak car accident had left him injured and unable to compete. Peter, only eleven or twelve at the time, hadn’t followed the story any more than that. He could see now, though, why Wade’s injuries had prevented him from reentering the world of  competitive gymnastics. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s wrong?” Wade asked, tilting his head. The skin where his eyebrows should have been furrowed then rose quickly. “Oh, sorry, I’m Wade.” When Peter still didn’t respond, Wade shifted uncomfortably for a moment before forcing his smile wider. “What, do I have something in my teeth? Neena, why didn’t you tell me?” He glanced over at the woman who had stopped Peter from leaving. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“More like something all over your face,” Peter said harshly, body still tense from his aborted confrontation with Flash. He saw the woman’s eyebrows raise slightly. Wade, on the other hand, laughed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Huh, is that why people always stare at me?” Wade asked, lifting his hand and turning it over as if to inspect it for the first time. “Looks like we’re both drawing a lot of attention to ourselves, eh?”  Peter scowled at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They’re not staring at me for the same reason they’re staring at you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s probably true,” Wade agreed easily. “Stark did mention you were running the big chip-on-your-shoulder act. It’s good to know he doesn’t always exaggerate.” Wade, for his part, seemed unbothered by Peter’s rude behavior. Instead of diffusing the tension, his demeanor put Peter more on edge.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t realize you two were such good friends.” Folding his arms, Peter shifted his stance and planted his feet. He lifted his chin, staring directly at Wade. “And if you think I’m going to compete and help your little gym be relevant for more than a career-ending injury trap, you’re insane.” Wade’s gym wasn’t just famous because of the owner himself, but also because he’d cultivated a less-than-stellar reputation for encouraging gymnasts to create and perform skills no one had ever done before. When you successfully showcased a new move in an international competition, it got named after you and went into the FIG Code of Points, the Holy Grail of scoring in competitive gymnastics. Having a move named after you forever was up there with winning the World Championships or the Olympics. Unfortunately, gymnastics had been around for a long time, which meant coming up with something no one had ever done before required the gymnast to perform inherently more complicated and dangerous maneuvers most never dared.  Gymnast’s careers often ended through injury rather than choice and encouraging the practice of increasingly dangerous skills only added to that risk.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course not, you look terribly out of shape. I don’t expect you’ll be winning anything for a while,” Wade said. He cut Peter off when he went to respond, “No worries. We’ve got junior elites here you can train with for now. Come along, then. I’ll show you around.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>------</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After formally introducing the woman who had stopped Peter’s escape attempt as assistant coach Neena Thurman, Wade proceeded to follow through on showing Peter around the gym. They’d stopped by the coach’s offices, next to the lobby and seating area where parents could watch their children behind a glass window, only long enough to drop off Peter’s duffel bag. Peter had wanted to turn that into another argument because setting his stuff down felt too much like giving in. He’d also thought about carrying it around to show Wade that he was not, in fact, out of shape. Having either sensed the building argument or resentment, Wade had simply asked if Peter had something to prove when he hesitated to leave the bag.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d dropped it promptly after that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now Wade was giving him the “grand tour” and introducing him to coaches along the way. For his part, Wade was keeping up a constant running commentary despite Peter’s own silence in return. The teen responded once or twice at the beginning of their tour, but the farther they moved through the gym and the more people stared at them (at him, Peter’s mind unhelpfully supplied), the less he felt like talking. Even Wade’s cheery demeanor began to feel more irritating than reassuring.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A year and a half ago, before Peter had left abruptly and cost the U.S. men’s team any chance at a world medal, he’d been a well-known name. He had qualified for the men’s senior national team as soon as he’d been old enough to do so. Unlike women’s gymnastics, where a career beyond the age of twenty was considered rare, most of the seniors on the men’s team had gone to and graduated college, putting them in their early to mid-twenties on average. Peter was an anomaly both in that he’d started gymnastics very young compared to many of his teammates and had excelled in more than one skill-based apparatus, making up for his still developing strength in other areas. His coach at the time had also made sure Peter was always in front of cameras or at competitions to generate talk. It had worked, too, because Peter had been selected for his first major competition just a month before his sixteenth birthday. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>At the time, it had been something he was proud of, competing on the same level with athletes a decade older than him. But just like it’d made him stand out when he was everyone’s favorite up-and-coming gymnast, his age became a target of ridicule and reasoning for why the senior team shouldn’t have such young members on it in the first place when he’d quit abruptly. So while Peter was still young enough to compete as a junior elite, it wasn’t a compliment when Wade had suggested he train with them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This is my other assistant coach, James. He’s in charge of the juniors,” Wade said, derailing Peter’s train of thought when he realized who Wade was referring to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dammit, Wilson,” the man said, making sure the gymnast he’d been spotting finished before turning towards them. “Stop telling people my name is James.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re Bucky Barnes,” Peter said dumbly. Bucky (James, what a normal sounding first name), paused and looked at Peter. Bucky’s face was on more than one poster in Peter’s room back home, and one of the few that had been spared a black Sharpie makeover. Long before Peter had started making a name for himself, Bucky had been winning World Championships and getting skills named after himself. One of Peter’s dreams was to one day be good enough to even think about training to do the Barnes. Although it was commonly referred to as a </span>
  <a href="https://youtu.be/ogONikxSYOo">
    <span>Dragulescu piked</span>
  </a>
  <span>, Bucky Barnes had been the first to perform the forward double salto vault with a half twist in the piked position. It still held the highest difficulty score available on the vault event, along with only a handful of other skills. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re Peter Parker,” Bucky replied. The corner of his lips quirked up, and Peter felt himself blush. This was </span>
  <em>
    <span>Bucky Barnes</span>
  </em>
  <span>; he was making an idiot of himself by stating the obvious and staring. Worse, Bucky </span>
  <em>
    <span>knew who he was</span>
  </em>
  <span>, which meant Bucky had to know how he’d cost the USA a world medal; a medal Bucky himself had led the team to winning more than once before his injury. An idol in the sport he’d once loved probably hated him, and Peter couldn’t even form words upon meeting him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, my gosh, whoa. Hey! You’re Peter Parker,” another voice cut in, drawing the attention of all three of them, “Are you coming out of retirement? Are you going to train here? That’s so cool!” The boy looked young, younger than Peter for sure. He was only a hair shorter than Peter, but the places Peter had started to fill out with age and his hiatus were broader and more defined than they were on the boy. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter, still starstruck from meeting Bucky and subsequently making a fool of himself, shifted uncomfortably under the boy’s attention. “I wouldn’t call being forced to relocate here against my will cool, but sure.” The excitement over his presence was unexpected and made Peter feel inexplicably guilty. “If I wanted to come out of retirement, I certainly wouldn’t have picked this dump.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter clenched his teeth when the boy’s smile fell slowly, like he was unsure if Peter was trying to make a joke. Snapping at Flash and Wade had felt justified, somehow. Snapping at this boy for being excited to meet him felt a bit like kicking a puppy, however. It wasn’t this kid’s fault Peter was here. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Miles, now isn’t a great time,” Bucky said, turning away from Peter and towards the boy. Peter looked over to find Wade frowning at him, probably already regretting his choice to let Peter train here. Bucky and Miles exchanged a few more words, but Peter couldn’t hear them over the sounds of his own heartbeat and the cacophony of the gym as it seemed to swallow him whole. If Bucky didn’t hate him before, he certainly did now. Just great; he’d upset the one person in the entire gym who didn’t outright hate him. Or hadn’t immediately, anyway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A hand landed gently on his shoulder and all of the sound in the gym rushed back in. When Peter flinched bodily, Bucky’s hand rose in surrender as quickly as it had landed. Peter saw Miles was walking away, pausing now and then to glance behind himself when he thought they weren’t looking. Wade and Bucky exchanged a glance Peter couldn’t decipher before fixing their gazes back on him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Look kid,” Wade began in that same tone Peter had heard too often recently. Bucky was frowning at him, Wade was about to lecture him, and Peter felt his chest constrict. He needed to leave.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t,” he snapped, taking one step away from the two of them and then another. Before they could make a move to stop him, Peter turned and promptly walked towards the first set of doors he could see, these ones metal and scuffed and dented like they’d been kicked one too many times. No one blocked his exit this time, and he left the gym to Wade’s distant call of “Walking out again, Parker? Isn’t that trick overdone?” followed by a chorus of laughter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>------</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter made it as far as the parking lot. Without his duffel bag and cell phone, there wasn’t much he could actually do, and those were still in Wade’s office. Though Peter had insisted to Tony that he wasn’t wanted here and had known his reception wasn’t going to be one with open arms, the reality of it wasn’t something he’d fully comprehended before entering the gym. Peter had known comments like Flash’s were a sure thing, even if he hadn't expected Flash to be there himself, and so he’d worn his anger like a bulletproof vest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The problem was that he hadn’t been able to take it off even when he was greeted with something other than anticipated hostility. Bucky, Miles, and even Wade had all initially greeted him kindly, and he’d done nothing but throw it back in their faces.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he heard the door open behind him, Peter hunched further in on himself from where he sat on the edge of the sidewalk. It wasn’t Wade who had followed him out to reprimand him though.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You didn’t make it very far,” Bucky acknowledged, taking a seat on the curb a few feet away from Peter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My bag’s still inside,” Peter said, resting his chin on top of his knees. Bucky didn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>sound</span>
  </em>
  <span> annoyed, but Peter didn’t exactly know Bucky well enough to tell either way. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah,” was all Bucky said, and then he was quiet for several minutes. The silence was probably meant to be companionable, but it just made Peter uncomfortable. Bucky let Peter fidget in the silence, leaning back on his hands and looking relaxed. When Peter finally grew uncomfortable enough to open his mouth and speak, he was cut off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s Wade’s car over there,” Bucky said, pointing to a sleek red sports car that looked far too small to fit someone like Wade. Peter frowned, lifting his chin off his knees to turn and look at Bucky. “If you wanted to key it or something.” Bucky kept his gaze fixed on the car until Peter tried to speak again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why—” Peter began only to be cut off again by Bucky’s stare.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wade loves that car. You want to punish him, right?” Peter scowled, looking away from Bucky and wrapping his arms more firmly around his legs. “I’ll help you, if you want. I hate when he introduces me to people as James.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t want to key his stupid car,” Peter snapped, glaring at the object in question. It was annoying because Bucky wasn’t that far off base. If Peter had known which car was Wade’s when he’d stormed out, he might have considered doing something to it. Now that Bucky had suggested it, it just sounded childish. It wasn’t Wade’s fault he was here any more than it was Bucky’s, or Miles’, or even Flash’s. Peter had been trying to piss Wade off since he got there; he shouldn’t have been so hurt when the favor was returned.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What do you want then?” Bucky asked, drawing Peter’s attention once more. The last person to ask Peter what he wanted had been the judge, and that had landed him here.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t want to be here,” he said instead. Bucky raised his eyebrows, then huffed a mirthless laugh when Peter remained silent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve followed your career,” Bucky said casually, breaking eye contact to gaze forward again. “I remember wondering what else I would’ve been able to do if I’d been half as talented as you at that age. I remember thinking I was going to compete on an Olympic team with you one day, too.” Peter wanted to be annoyed because he’d heard variations of this speech far too often over the last year, how talented he was, how much potential he was wasting, how people would kill to have even half the skill he had. If it had come from anyone besides Bucky, he probably would’ve snapped at them. Instead, Peter was pressing his left cheek against his knees, turning away from Bucky, and trying to hide the warmth he felt flood his face. He felt, inexplicably, like he wanted to cry.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry to disappoint,” Peter said quietly, the bite gone from his words. For someone who had earned so many people’s disappointment over the last year, he should have been used to the feeling by now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Injuries happen all the time, even with the best coaches,” Bucky said without missing a beat. Peter thought Bucky was being purposefully obtuse, but Peter wasn’t sure why. Bucky didn’t owe him any kindness. “I’ve had time to deal with my loss, and I’m happy to coach others now,” he paused and waited until Peter finally turned to look at him again. “I’d be happy to coach you, too, if that’s what you want.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Was that what he wanted? Peter wasn’t sure, but he knew what he didn’t want. He didn’t want to go home to Tony just to get into arguments every other day again. He didn’t want to go to college with MJ and Gwen. He definitely didn’t want to go to juvie. He didn’t want to be XFG’s claim to fame for producing an Olympic gymnast. Peter was pretty sure he didn’t even want to go to the Olympics anymore, if anyone was still stupid enough to invite him. He didn’t want to be here where he so blatantly wasn’t wanted. Peter frowned because that wasn’t exactly true. Bucky was out here asking him to stay, wasn’t he? Not to compete for the gym, just to stay and train. Did Peter want to stay? He looked at Bucky, who gave him a lazy smirk as if he already knew Peter’s answer. Maybe he did, Peter realized.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Instead of making him answer aloud, Bucky nodded definitively once and stood up, brushing off his navy joggers as he did.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright, then, let’s head back inside.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter took another moment before he stood up and followed Bucky back into the gym. They were greeted by Wade hovering near the doors upon reentering. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You guys were gone a while,” he commented, eyes narrowed suspiciously at Bucky.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wanted to give him time to finish carving his name into your car. It didn’t seem right to cut him off at ‘Pet,’” Bucky replied without missing a beat. It took Wade a second to comprehend what had been said before looking at Peter, then Bucky, and then back at Peter before running out of the gym with a string of expletives and cries of someone named ‘Bea.’ </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter glanced at Bucky, who returned his questioning gaze with a wink. For the first time since arriving at the gym, Peter smiled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>------</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter did return to XFG the next day, albeit somewhat reluctantly. At the boarding house where a number of the full time gymnasts stayed, he’d tossed and turned all night. Unable to quiet his thoughts, sleep had been hard to come by, and it was obvious from the dark circles under his eyes. He’d dressed in a pair of loose black sweatpants and an old cotton MIT shirt that had seen better days. Technically, while he was in athletic clothes, it wasn’t ideal gym wear. There was very little actual gymnastics Peter would be able to do without having to worry about loose fitting clothes getting caught or snagged on something they shouldn’t, but he hadn’t brought any singlets with him purposefully; if they kicked him out because of it, all the better.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter was early, and he looked around the gym when he heard the doors open and everyone began filing in. Several stares were directed at him as they started separating into what were clearly predetermined groupings. Wade was talking to a parent near the coach’s offices, Neena was off to the side corralling a group of ten year olds, and many of the other coaches he couldn’t remember the names of were heading towards their respective groups. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey,” a voice greeted, pulling Peter’s attention away from observing the coaches. It was the boy from yesterday, smiling tentatively in front of him, one hand wrapped around the back of his neck. His deep brown eyes were sincere and apologetic. “I’m sorry about yesterday. I get a little excited sometimes. I asked like everybody here for an autograph when I first joined. Don’t worry! I won’t ask you, unless you want to, but you probably don’t...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter racked his brain for what was probably a moment too long because the boy’s face fell as he trailed off, and he started to turn away. “Miles, right?” Peter said quickly. The boy stopped and turned back towards Peter, his smile returning.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, I’m Miles,” he affirmed, taking his hand off his neck and holding it out to Peter in greeting. Peter hesitated only a second before shaking it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Peter,” he said, and though Miles already knew that, he nodded in return.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Bucky said you’d be in our group. Everyone’s over there. Did you want to warm up with me?” Miles offered, gesturing to a group of maybe eight or nine boys around their age. Peter didn’t really want to warm up with Miles, or anyone really, but he followed him over to the group of boys anyway. It was better than standing alone in the middle of the floor by himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When they approached the group of junior elites Miles had gestured to, some of them regarded Peter warily. Most of them glared and moved closer together, leaving no room for Peter to join. The message was clear; Peter was not welcome here. Miles was either too naive or too carefree to notice because he only gestured for Peter to join him where he sat and began to stretch, keeping up a steady stream of conversation. Sitting down slowly, Peter tried not to glare at the other gymnasts who moved further away from them. Though he’d never admit it, finding someone like Miles, who seemed inclined to always think the best of him, was appealing in what was still a very hostile environment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Anyway, I’ve been doing gymnastics since I was like seven or eight. I remember the first time I saw you compete. You were </span>
  <em>
    <span>so cool</span>
  </em>
  <span>. I told my mom I was gonna be just like you. I used to try and do some of your routines, but they were really hard. Of course you already know that, they’re your routines.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter went through some of the motions of stretching as Miles rambled on, but it was a halfhearted effort. He hadn’t trained in over a year. Suddenly faced with being back in a gym, the idea of trying to stretch and warm up and finding out he’d lost his flexibility and strength was daunting. As Miles shifted into a straddle split, with both legs extended to the left and right of his torso, Peter pulled the soles of his feet together and let his knees splay towards the ground. As they finished their own stretching, some of the gymnasts around them got up and began doing warm up drills down the tumble trampoline.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Miles was still telling Peter about how he was trying to learn a double twisting double layout as Peter followed him over to join the others. Only half listening, Peter was more concerned with the tumbling warm-ups happening in front of them. Logically, he knew his body was still capable of a short series of front and back layouts aided by the trampoline, but the closer they got to the front of the line, the more his anxiety grew. Every mistake he made was going to be scrutinized; Peter was supposed to be one of the best.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Where’s Bucky?” he asked, cutting Miles off abruptly. Up until then, everyone had been all too happy to ignore the two of them, but his question drew attention.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Already trying to be the coach's pet again, Parker?” Flash sneered, emerging from one of the groups that had shied away from Peter and Miles when they sat down to stretch. He turned to Miles, arms crossed, “If you keep hanging out with this loser, you’ll never be picked to compete. Don’t you want to be a competitive gymnast?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter bristled. He’d never liked Flash. They’d trained together for a few years at Gold West Gymnastics Academy where Flash had spent as much time harassing Peter as he had actually training. Eventually, Flash had transferred; Peter always suspected it was because </span>
  <em>
    <span>he’d</span>
  </em>
  <span> never been picked for the competition teams there. It was a nasty surprise to find his old tormentor in  the gym Peter was forced to join, but he was more surprised by how much Flash’s comments about Miles got under his skin</span>
  <span></span><br/>
<span><br/>
</span>
  <span>“I don’t think he’s a loser,” Miles murmured, his voice unsure and quiet, like he was trying not to make Flash angry. Realizing Miles was Flash’s victim here, Peter didn’t feel the same inclination. Where Peter had never been particularly good at standing up for himself, standing up for Miles came easily.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’d know what being a loser is like, wouldn’t you?” Peter said, stepping forward and putting himself between Miles and Flash. “Are you still scared to do a double double layout?” Peter gestured to Miles, who had lifted his head to stare wide-eyed at Peter. “You know Miles is training it already? Maybe you can ask him for some pointers.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s big talk for someone who can’t even do a single anymore,” Flash scoffed. A muscle in his jaw twitched, and he’d lost some of his air of superiority at the news Miles was training the move. Clearly, Flash still hadn’t mastered it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter laughed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I could do a </span>
  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7SLBoDCGVQ&amp;feature=youtu.be">
    <span>double double layout</span>
  </a>
  <span> now if I wanted to.” The nerves he’d felt earlier dissipated. Peter had mastered that skill when he’d been younger than Miles. Before he’d quit, it had even been in his routine near the end, one of his less difficult tumbling passes. Doing it on a tumbling trampoline was almost like cheating.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do it then,” Flash challenged, moving into Peter’s space so they were almost nose to nose. For a second, Peter thought Flash had shrunk. But no, Peter realized he had </span>
  <em>
    <span>grown</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and this was the first time he was noticing the growth spurt he’d undergone after quitting. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>At Gold West, Flash had always felt so much more intimidating. Standing in front of him now, Peter almost felt sorry for the other boy. Their argument had drawn a small crowd. Warm-ups down the tumble track paused as everyone turned to watch the two of them and see what Peter would do.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Never one to back down from a challenge, and maybe a little overconfident now in his body’s ability to remember everything he’d once known how to do, Peter shrugged.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Flash smirked and moved out of Peter’s way. Miles looked like he wanted to say something to stop Peter but was too nervous to actually do so. The only one who did say anything was Wade, quickly descending upon the both of them to put a stop to their argument.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re not throwing a skill like that without training it first,” he called, staring directly at Peter. Peter made eye contact and promptly turned towards the track. “Don’t you dare,” Wade called again, louder this time. Peter ignored him and took off down the trampoline, hitting the roundoff into a back handspring with the ease of someone who had done it thousands of times. He could vaguely hear his name being yelled as he pushed off the trampoline and performed the two backwards flips with two twists, keeping his body straight the whole time. He overshot his second flip, landing on the mat with too much backwards momentum. Instincts took over again as Peter tumbled into a </span>
  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUKYXioKIjc">
    <span>backwards safety</span>
  </a>
  <span> fall, rolling over completely, landing on his knees and laughing. He’d forgotten how exhilarating it was being in the air.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter looked around, still grinning and high on the adrenaline, to find blank faces staring back at him. Even Flash and Miles looked uncomfortable. When his eyes finally landed on Wade, Peter understood why. XFG’s head coach did not look pleased, arms folded as he stared directly at Peter. The expression caused Peter’s smile to drop slightly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know what you did at your old gym, but we don’t go and pull stupid stunts beyond our skill levels here. Gymnastics is always a risk, but we mitigate that risk with training and coaches spotting you when they need to,” Wade said as he closed the distance. His voice was loud enough to carry; it was obvious this was a lecture that had been delivered with some frequency.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Chill out,” Peter said, waving a hand dismissively. “I knew what I was doing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Instead of responding, Wade waved his hand around in a circle once in the air. “Juniors, outside. Now.” Rolling his eyes, Peter sat down instead of moving to comply. What surprised him was when everyone else began moving together in unison, heading to the door Wade had indicated. Wade stared at Peter until he finally got up and followed reluctantly after, the last one out of the doors and onto the field behind the gym.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>------</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The punishment for disobeying Wade was running laps in the grassy field. Peter could see how it might suck, but as he was currently sitting on the small section of bleachers at the edge and watching, he didn’t really empathize with the other juniors who </span>
  <em>
    <span>were</span>
  </em>
  <span> running as Wade stood there watching with him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Feel free to join us, Peter,” he said for the third time, looking up at Peter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wouldn’t want to hurt myself,” Peter said, shrugging, “Seeing as I haven’t trained for running in a while.” If Wade wanted to see who was more stubborn, he wasn’t going to find an easy fight with Peter. Wade smiled at him, but it didn’t reach his eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ten more laps,” he called to the group, who responded to the directive with a chorus of groans. “Until Peter decides to join us, we can stay out here all day.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wade could actually only stay out there until eight p.m., at which time he was legally required to let them return home or to the boarding house for the evening. Peter was jostled roughly by more than one of the juniors as they headed inside to collect their bags. Bucky had shown up to the gym at some point and was standing by the door, frowning at Peter as he approached. Peter opened his mouth, to say what he wasn’t yet sure, but Bucky looked past him before he said anything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wilson, a word,” was all Peter heard, forced inside with the rest of the juniors. A knot tightened in his stomach.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter took his time collecting his things. No one had anything to say to him that he wanted to hear; even Miles hadn’t said goodbye on his way out, dripping in sweat and looking defeated. When everyone else had left, Peter finally shouldered his gym bag and began the short walk to the boarding house he shared with the other gymnasts training at XFG long distance like himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leaving with everyone else might have been worth enduring the angry remarks because, when he got back to the house, the front door was locked. The boarding house was much larger than a typical family home. It looked like it had been added on to throughout the years, with different colored siding visible in various places. It was two stories and housed himself and seven or eight other athletes. Peter might have described it as more of a mansion than a house, except that it wasn’t exactly fancy. The floors creaked every time someone moved and at least two of the bathrooms looked like they hadn’t been cleaned in a while. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Banging on the door a few times didn’t get anyone’s attention. Peter stepped back to see if the lights were on. Finding several windows lit, Peter walked around the house to the door in the back, but it was also locked. He returned to the front and banged on the door again, harder this time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey,” he called out, “can someone open the door?” He hadn’t been given a key yet. Yesterday, the door had been unlocked when he arrived, so Peter hadn’t thought about it. Instead of letting him in, someone opened one of the windows upstairs and threw Peter’s duffel bag out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck off,” they yelled, slamming the window shut. Peter scowled and kicked the door hard once, regretting it immediately as the force travelled up through his own foot. He went to grab his other bag, looking back at the house to see the curtains drop and Miles dart away from where he’d been watching.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Whatever,” Peter muttered to himself, pulling the strap of his duffel over the opposite shoulder from his gym bag. He didn’t want to be here anyway; what did he care if they didn’t want him there either? It had been stupid to even entertain the idea of training again just because his favorite gymnast had offered to coach him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A car pulled up into the driveway before he had time to contemplate where he was going to stay for the night. Peter squinted against the headlights as his eyes adjusted. It was Wade’s stupid little red sports car. Peter’s grip on his bag tightened.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Get in,” Wade said, leaning over to open the passenger door from inside the car. Peter hesitated, but it wasn’t like he had anywhere else to go. Shoving his bags in the back, Peter got in and closed the door. When Wade didn’t start driving right away, he looked over at him. “Seatbelt,” Wade prompted. Peter rolled his eyes and pulled the belt across his shoulder, buckling it with a condescending click.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The car ride was silent except for the radio playing softly in the background. The song had barely finished as they pulled into an old-timey themed diner that looked like it had seen better days. It wasn’t far down the road from the house. Wade turned the car off and paused with his other hand still on the steering wheel. Without making eye contact, Peter unbuckled his seatbelt and exited the car in an effort to prolong the inevitable conversation Wade was clearly trying to start.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wade didn’t stop him, instead following Peter inside after locking his car. The diner was empty save the two of them and an old man reading a newspaper at the counter. They were seated in a booth along the wall of windows facing the parking lot. Their waitress was a middle-aged woman with gray streaks in her brown hair and a few extra wrinkles around her eyes who introduced herself as Darla. Other than ordering their food, they sat in silence until Darla returned, smiling brightly at both of them as she ignored the tension.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“One coffee and a plate of curly fries,” she said, placing them in front of Wade and Peter respectively. She brushed her hands along the white apron that covered the pink poodle skirt of her uniform, nodding at them. “Anything else I can get you two?” When Wade shook his head no, she nodded again and left them alone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter chose to stare at his plate of fries instead of Wade, but he didn’t make a move to actually eat them. He didn’t feel very hungry anymore. By the time Wade was setting his empty coffee cup down, Peter’s fries were cold and untouched.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Would it help your appetite if I turn the other way?” Wade finally asked. Peter looked up, confused for a moment before he realized Wade was referring to his skin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s not—” He started. “You didn’t make me lose my appetite.” Peter bit his lip, looking back at the plate of cold fries. Of course Wade would think having to sit across from his scarred face had caused Peter’s unexplained loss of appetite; the first thing he’d done upon meeting the man in person had been to insult him. It wasn’t wrong to say Wade was tough to look at, either. Wade may have been handsome once, blond if Peter remembered correctly, but the scarring left his skin pitted and stretched haphazardly over his body. Peter wondered if it hurt or if Wade had grown used to the sensitivity over time. But while Wade wasn’t traditionally handsome anymore, his face wasn’t what chased Peter’s appetite away. In the middle of the night in this quiet diner, he felt he could admit that much. “I’m sorry,” he said, looking Wade in the eyes. “For what I said about it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If I had a dollar for every time someone told me I looked like a regurgitated avocado, I’d be rich enough to move my gym out of Poughkeepsie,” Wade replied dismissively. “You’re not the first, or the last, to be grossed out by it. Look kid,” he said, ignoring Peter when the gymnast glared at him. “I get that this isn’t your top choice of places to be.” Scoffing, Peter leaned back in his seat and checked out of the conversation. Staring intently at his water glass, Peter twirled his straw around. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pulling Peter’s cup away, Wade made a frustrated noise. Peter’s eyes flicked up to meet Wade’s angry ones. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Listen,” he began again, more firmly this time. “You’re only here after that stunt today because of Barnes. You’re not special.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The scowl Peter had been sporting faltered. He blinked at Wade in surprise. Zeroing in on it immediately, Wade leaned forward across the table.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You might have been a hot-shot at your last gym, but here you’re just like everyone else. And you’ll follow the rules like everyone else, or you can go to juvie. I don’t tolerate gymnasts who pull the shit you did today. We have coaches for a reason.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter recovered from his surprise and snorted, turning his attention back to his plate of cold fries now that Wade had ahold of his water. A moment later, that plate was gone, too. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You need to be able to trust your coach to know what’s best for you and to make sure you’re not going to break your neck, but a coach needs to trust you not to do something stupid, too.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter glared at the table, then forced his expression to relax into something blank as he met Wade’s gaze again. “Because coaches always know what’s best.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wade scowled, scooting out of the booth and standing. He fished his beaten-up wallet out of his pocket and threw a twenty down on the table, not waiting for Peter before walking out muttering something that sounded vaguely like “Fucking James” and “Fucking bullshit.” Peter scrambled out of the booth to follow, more because Wade was his ride than because he wanted to continue this conversation in any form. He found the man blocking the passenger door as he exited the diner.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Get your shit together and get over yourself.” Wade’s tone was firm, and Peter hesitated. Watching to make sure Peter stayed put, Wade moved to get into the driver’s seat. He rolled the passenger window down, and Peter watched as the door locks clicked down. “If you can’t do that, don’t come back tomorrow. House is that way, about five miles, then make a left.” He pointed down the road they’d driven in on, waiting only long enough to determine Peter wasn’t going to say anything. Without another word, Wade put the car in drive and pulled out, leaving Peter alone in the diner parking lot.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter kicked the closest rock he could find, watched it skitter across the pavement, and started making his way back to the boarding house.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>------</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It ended up being Miles, quietly opening the door when Peter returned and telling him to come inside, and Bucky, with whatever he had said to Wade about not kicking him out, that convinced Peter to show up at the gym the next day. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. I Don't Care</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It was intimidating for Peter to get back to training in a gym full-time. The first week was hell. Peter learned the hard way that he’d lost his left splits and the ability to rotate his shoulders fully, both of which had been slow to return. By the second week he’d been doing hours upon hours of what felt like nothing but strength training and mobility, and he had suffered through every minute of it. The ice machine in the lobby might as well have been sponsored by Stark Industries for as often as Peter had been icing one sore muscle after another. A month and a half after Wade left Peter on the side of the road to find his own way back, Peter was finally beginning to regain the endurance to train more than a couple of hours a day without feeling sore for a week at a time. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>As soon as the soreness began to fade, Peter asked Bucky if he could have access to the gym after hours under the guise of additional strength training. Though he’d gained a lot of his flexibility and strength back in a short amount of time, Peter was still a far cry from where he’d once been. And for the first time in a long time, Peter </span>
  <em>
    <span>wanted</span>
  </em>
  <span> to be as good—better even—than he’d been in the past. Bucky had been very strict so far in keeping Peter focused on building back up to getting on the apparatus, focusing on the basics and his strength, but he was getting antsy. They’d finally agreed he could have access to the gym in the evenings under the condition he only do bodyweight conditioning without a coach there to spot him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Miles still spent almost as much time watching Peter as he did training himself. Exposure and time hadn’t done much to dull his excitement over getting to run drills with Peter. When they weren’t at the gym, Miles was inviting himself into Peter’s room at the house or bugging him to watch a movie downstairs with the other boys. Peter tolerated the first better than the second, but Miles remained undeterred even when Peter dismissed his attempts. In a testament to Miles’ perseverance, Peter now knew more about Miles than he was sure Miles knew about him. Still, it was nice to have a friendly face who was always happy to just see Peter as himself, not as a gymnastic prodigy or </span>
  <em>
    <span>‘troubled youth’</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>While he’d grown closer to Miles, the other gymnasts had yet to fully warm up to him; that was something he hadn’t actively tried to change. No one had been as openly hostile as Flash the first couple of days, but none of the other gymnasts went out of their way to interact with Peter either. They had seemed to come to an understanding that Peter wasn’t going anywhere, and if they left him alone, he’d return the favor. Peter also suspected Bucky and Wade had something to do with this precariously balanced truce.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d learned that Bucky had been late that fateful day Wade left him at the diner because he still did physical therapy twice a week for his left arm, which had been fractured so badly in a fall from the high bar that Bucky often joked he had an arm made entirely out of metal. On the days Bucky was in therapy, Wade took over coaching for the junior elites. After the first week of Bucky returning to the gym post therapy to find Peter sitting outside instead of training, he’d given Peter his own strength programming he could do self-directed. Every other week he came up with some new way to suggest Peter join in on the days Wade coached, and every other week, Peter turned him down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Training with Wade was something Peter was actively trying to avoid.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wade was frustrating in his ability to see through Peter. The coach hadn’t mentioned their conversation at the diner after Peter showed up the next day, seemingly accepting that, by being there, Peter had decided to get his shit together despite the fact that Peter was still openly hostile towards Wade. Friendly greetings were met with silence and eye rolls, but Wade just took it in stride.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Every wall Peter erected was made of glass where Wade was concerned; it might have been there, but it didn’t do anything to keep Wade out. The looks Wade gave him the mornings after Peter trained alone at the gym were always too knowing; he’d even tossed Peter a tin of </span>
  <a href="https://www.amazon.com/RipFix-Winnies-Repair-Treatment-Cracked/dp/B00QFRBP0Q/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?dchild=1&amp;keywords=rip+fix&amp;qid=1601528518&amp;sr=8-1-spons&amp;psc=1&amp;spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEzUE9SQzQ1VUcxMTlZJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwMDM5MDAyM0o0VEpUWUw3NVNXVyZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUExMDMxNzk0M1YyVzAyNFQ2NkxHUSZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX2F0ZiZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=">
    <span>RipFix</span>
  </a>
  <span> with a simple “Clean the blood up better” the day after he’d torn his hands in three places after deciding he was ready to get back on the high bar.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Everyone in the gym seemed to love Wade. He never stopped talking, checking in on group after group and bothering coaches and athletes alike. But no matter how annoyed they said they were or pretended to be, nearly everyone had a smile on their face after speaking with Wade. True to what Wade had told him, he treated Peter just like every other gymnast there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wasn't special.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Since arriving, he’d received the odd text here and there from Tony, asking him how things were going and if he wanted to come home for the weekend. Peter continued to be vague in his replies; it wasn’t that he didn’t want to see his dad, but he wasn’t ready to admit Tony might not have been completely wrong in sending him back to a gym either. Putting off going home and brushing his dad off resulted in Tony thoroughly embarrassing him by sending balloons that filled the entire lobby and enough cake to the gym to feed an army on his eighteen birthday. Peter tried to go the plausible deniability route, but within seconds of seeing the cake, Miles had connected the dots and announced to everyone that it was Peter’s birthday. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Two and a half months after Peter had decided to stay at X-Force Gymnastics and give training another go, Bucky finally began programming actual apparatus work for him. The only downside was that he was still doing skills far below what he knew he was capable of. The skills he was supposed to work on were things Peter was positive he’d mastered years ago. Often, he’d express this opinion to Neena when she was spotting him. Peter liked Neena; she was down to Earth and didn’t sugar coat things. She was also everyone’s favorite coach for spotting; she’d never dropped a gymnast and had made more than one save that seemed impossible. There were at least three compilations on YouTube titled </span>
  <em>
    <span>Neena Thurman impossible gymnastics saves</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Any time Peter complained about things being too easy, she would laugh and correct his form. At Gold West, Peter had only ever been encouraged to try harder, faster, and more complicated skills every day. To Peter, “mastering the basics” sounded like something coaches only told the gymnasts who weren’t any good to do. Peter maintained that stand on the matter too, until he actually started to improve. Bucky still wasn’t letting him resume training any of his difficult skills during the day, but after hours Peter found that many of the things he was practicing were coming easier, with less effort and better landings. The only thing he could attribute it to was the newfound focus on the “basics” the coaches at XFG insisted upon.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Four months after the day of Peter’s arrival, Wade gathered all of the full time elite and junior elite gymnasts together on the floor. Miles had been talking about this announcement for over a week, telling Peter every day how he hoped this would be the first year he’d be picked to compete. The Winter Cup was coming up, and there were more than a few gymnasts who could theoretically qualify to compete in it from XFG. Peter hadn’t given it much thought at all until Wade finished calling out the names on his list and dismissed everyone back to training.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The only thing notable about the list to Peter was that he wasn’t on it. The last time Peter hadn’t been picked for a competition had been because he was too young. For someone who claimed he didn’t want to be back in the competition circuit, Peter was unreasonably annoyed he hadn’t been selected to compete in the Winter Cup. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The announcement threw off his entire afternoon. His distraction was obvious in every skill he tried to execute. Neena had to spot him by sliding the mat across the high bar to deflect the impact as Peter missed spectacularly, bounced off the bar, and fell face-first into the foam pit below. After his third miss, Bucky finally pulled him aside and another gymnast replaced him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s going on?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Though his brow was furrowed in question, Bucky’s posture was relaxed. Peter was relatively certain Bucky already knew why he couldn’t focus. Biting his lip, Peter looked anywhere but at Bucky. Peter was reluctant to say what was bothering him. Admitting he was mad he hadn’t been picked also meant admitting he’d </span>
  <em>
    <span>wanted</span>
  </em>
  <span> to be picked, and Peter hadn’t realized that until it happened.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nothing.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shifting his weight, Peter folded his arms across his chest and looked back towards where Neena was currently spotting the gymnast who had taken his spot, one who </span>
  <em>
    <span>didn’t</span>
  </em>
  <span> miss the bar on their release. The silence dragged on until Peter looked over, finally acknowledging Bucky again. All Bucky did then was raise his eyebrows. He had a knack for asking questions and getting answers without actually saying very much at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why wasn’t I picked?” Bucky’s expression barely twitched when Peter asked the question that had been bothering him all day. Peter’s jaw tensed. “My routines are harder than everyone else who is competing.” Or they had been, as far as Bucky knew. Most of what he’d been practicing barely qualified him to compete in a national competition. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bucky raised his hand placatingly. “I submitted your name on my list for who I thought was ready and should be considered,” he explained. “It’s Wade that makes the final decisions on who is going to compete.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Peter had nothing to say to that, Bucky fixed him with a look. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I did tell you to train with the group on the days he coaches.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter wanted to be mad at Bucky, but he wasn’t wrong. He’d told Peter to stop being so contrary towards Wade more than once. It was Peter who had continued to ignore him and ignore Wade. Because Wade had left him alone to more or less do his own thing with Bucky as his primary coach, Peter had assumed Wade was over whatever disagreements they’d had with each other during Peter’s first couple of days. Now it felt a bit like Wade hadn’t entirely let go of that resentment as much as Peter had thought, and he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to find out what earning that coach’s favor entailed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>------</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And then he said it was Wade’s decision, and apparently, he’s still mad at me,” Peter finished explaining to Miles. They were sitting on opposite ends of the small twin-sized bed Peter had claimed. The blankets were hanging off the side haphazardly and at least one of his pillows was shoved down the crease in between the bed and the wall. The room was smaller than most of the others in the house, just big enough for Peter’s bed, a small wardrobe, and a night stand. Whether it was Tony’s money or a preventative measure to ensure there weren’t any fights, Peter was glad he had a single room. Across from him, Miles sat cross-legged in flannel pajama bottoms and a grey t-shirt that was just a hair too long, tilting his head to the side as he listened.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t know you wanted to compete in the Winter Cup,” he said. Peter froze, then shook his head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I </span>
  <em>
    <span>don’t</span>
  </em>
  <span> want to compete” he said emphatically, standing up to pace back and forth as far as the small room allowed, four steps at a time. When he’d agreed to train at the gym, Peter had told himself he didn’t ever have to vie for a competition spot again. Peter had told Wade to his face that he couldn’t be paid enough to compete for X-Force Gymnastics. Not getting picked shouldn’t have bothered him. The wooden floors creaked with every step he took. “I just think it’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>stupid</span>
  </em>
  <span> he would hold a grudge and not pick me because of it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Miles looked thoughtful. Though he still felt something akin to admiration for Peter, the more time they spent training together, the more Miles had begun to come out of his shell. Even if Peter never asked him to, Miles often shared parts of himself with the other gymnast. Beyond being good at gymnastics and hoping to make it to the Olympics one day, Miles loved making art, of all things. There was a mural on one the side of the house that he’d shown to Peter; Wade had let Miles spray paint it after learning he was interested in trying out the medium. He’d even bought the spray paint for Miles after making the boy promise not to mark up anything else. Like Peter had been at his age, Miles was still in school, doing independent study for four hours a day during the week. His parents had only pulled him out of public school to train full time three years ago, and his least favorite subject was science.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you want to compete,” Miles finally said slowly, like he was picking each word carefully as he spoke, “then why don’t you just talk to Wade? He’d probably let you, if you stopped pretending you hate it here so much.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I </span>
  <em>
    <span>do</span>
  </em>
  <span> hate it here,” Peter replied instantly. It sounded as petulant as it felt. Miles laughed like he knew it, too. Whatever hero-worship he still had no longer deterred him from saying what he was thinking. Peter lamented the loss.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Whatever you say, Peter.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>------</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter decided to let it go. He </span>
  <em>
    <span>didn’t</span>
  </em>
  <span> want to compete, therefore he </span>
  <em>
    <span>didn’t</span>
  </em>
  <span> care that Wade had passed over his name on the list of athletes who would. It didn’t matter that the Winter Cup was one of only two events during the year that athletes could qualify in to be selected for the Senior National Team. Representing the United States and competing internationally was a thing of his past, and Peter was </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> mad about it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He made it until the following evening before he cornered Wade in his office, demanding to know why he hadn’t been considered to compete. Wade took a minute to finish the taco he’d been in the middle of eating before answering.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You were considered,” Wade told him flatly, but didn’t bother to elaborate. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If I was considered, then why wasn’t I picked?” Just like when he’d talked to Bucky, Peter didn’t plan the accusation coming out and sounding arrogant, but his routines </span>
  <em>
    <span>were</span>
  </em>
  <span> legitimately harder than every other gymnast he’d seen train in the gym. Even if he wasn’t nationally ranked anymore, Peter knew his routines were competitive enough for the Winter Cup. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t think you were interested in competing.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wade made it sound so simple. Again, Peter was forced to face the reality of admitting he was mad he hadn’t been selected because that meant admitting he </span>
  <em>
    <span>wanted</span>
  </em>
  <span> to compete. When he didn’t answer immediately, Wade turned back to his dinner and resumed eating.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I figured you’d want to generate talk, at least,” Peter said, going for a different angle rather than admitting he'd wanted to be chosen. “If I competed for your gym, maybe you’d win for once.” Though their interactions had been more civil lately, they hadn’t entirely lost their edge. True to his nature, Wade only laughed at Peter. Disappointment rushed through him when Wade ignored the bait.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t give a damn about my gym’s reputation.” Peter was reminded of the first time he met the man and how he hadn’t flinched when Peter had called into question that very same reputation. “I put people in competitions who want to compete and love the sport they’re competing in, whether or not I think they’re going to win. I agreed to let you train here when Stark called. I didn’t agree to put you into any competitions I don’t think you’re ready for.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was that, more than anything else Wade had said, that grated Peter’s nerves. Wade didn’t know anything about how ready he was or wasn’t. Even Bucky, who he worked with every day, still had him doing skills he could have done when he was ten. Neither of them was aware that Peter spent his free time in the gym, unsupervised, practicing many of his older, more difficult routines. He’d nearly injured himself more than once; he still had a nasty bruise down the side of his right thigh from his latest fall to prove it. Though many of his top-rated skills weren’t quite back to where they’d been, most of his routines were still difficult enough to be fully competitive.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s not fair,” he said, spreading his arms wide to gesture where Bucky’s office was, currently empty. “Bucky thinks I’m ready to compete.” Or so he’d been told by the man. Bucky had said he’d submitted his name for consideration. Surely he wouldn’t have done so if he didn’t think Peter was ready for a national competition.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Apparently, Wade thought so.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Bucky thinks you’re ready for a watered down routine you wouldn’t have competed with when you were thirteen,” he said, fixing Peter with a look. He gestured out towards the gym, visible through a window in his office and now nearly empty as the last few gymnasts finished their practice and packed up for the evening. “He probably still thinks you’re just doing strength work in here by yourself too, doesn’t he?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This was why Peter had yet to fully warm up to Wade. For some inexplicable reason, he had an uncanny ability to see things Peter preferred to hide. It was unsettling in the way it made Peter feel seen. Sure, Wade had made the off comment here and there that hinted at him knowing Peter was doing more than just strength training in the gym after hours, but Peter didn’t realize Wade knew just how much more he’d been doing. And if he’d known, it didn’t explain why Wade hadn’t put a stop to it. Peter shifted uncomfortably, folding his arms across his chest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s not the point,” he mumbled. Wade laughed at him, and Peter felt his cheeks flush in anger. He was being serious.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It definitely is the point,” Wade said, a small smirk still playing at the corner of his lips like he was amused rather than angry. When Peter’s scowl didn’t fade, Wade’s expression softened slightly. He stood up, throwing the wrappers from his dinner into the trash can by the door, and turned back towards Peter. “Look, if you want to compete, I’ll put you in a competition when you’re ready to actually train all the shit you’re trying to do in here by yourself.” Peter straightened and turned to face Wade fully, interested after hearing that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For someone who was still playing at being here against his will and not caring about competitions, Peter’s behavior was giving him away. “But,” Wade continued, looking Peter in the eye to make sure he was listening. “You’ve got to start working with someone, whether that’s Bucky or Neena or one of the other coaches. I’m not going to have you train in here alone and break your neck trying to get picked for a competition.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter thought that over for a moment. Bucky was a good choice, and Peter trusted him, but he’d also been reluctant to let Peter move past mastering the basics again. Neena was great for spotting, and Peter felt certain she’d catch him if he made any horrendous mistakes. The problem was that neither of them made the final decisions, though.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay,” he said slowly. “What about you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wade paused, looking unsure for the first time since Peter approached him. “What about me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can I train with you?” Peter clarified. “That way you’ll know I’m ready to compete.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wade considered him in silence for a long moment. Peter shifted under the scrutiny, trying to maintain eye contact.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know that requires actually talking to me,” he finally said, still looking unsure at Peter’s sudden suggestion. “And not just to complain, either. It means listening when I tell you to do something.” Peter nodded along, half-listening but unconcerned with what Wade was saying. If listening to Wade got him to his goal, Peter was certain he could do it, fully confident in his ability to compartmentalize his feelings on the situation just to get what he wanted. “And,” Wade finished, the challenge in his tone evident, “just because I train you doesn’t mean I’m going to automatically think you’re ready to compete.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That made Peter grin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know,” he said. “That’s why I’m going to prove it.”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. The Pros and Cons of Breathing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The first evening after their discussion, Peter lingered behind as everyone left the gym. He was going through a series of stretches and warm-up drills while waiting for Wade to lock up. Peter was in a handstand hold when Wade approached, his face nearly at the height of Peter’s feet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Huh.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Wade didn’t elaborate, Peter tried to look up at Wade. Because he was still upside-down, the motion caused his form to break, and Peter had to backpedal several steps with his hands to readjust his balance. Wade waited until he stopped moving around before reaching out and pushing Peter’s shins hard enough to knock him over. Tucking his chin, Peter rolled out of the handstand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What was that for?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You grew when you quit, didn’t you?” Wade held his hand level to the ground and moved it a couple inches higher as he spoke. “I mean, you’re still small, but you were smaller before right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter stood up a little taller. The top of his head barely came to Wade’s shoulder, forcing Peter to crane his neck to maintain eye contact. “What makes you say that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s why you keep clipping your feet on the bar and under-rotating your saltos,” Wade said. “Do a handstand.” Gesturing at the ground, Wade looked at him expectantly. Peter opened his mouth to argue. “Handstand,” Wade repeated, cutting him off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With a dissatisfied huff, Peter turned and kicked up into a handstand once more. Wade waited until he was sure Peter was stable, then asked him to lower down into a </span>
  <a href="https://youtu.be/Uj7ChVKHonA?t=118">
    <span>Stalder</span>
  </a>
  <span> hold. Shifting his weight, Peter slowly opened his legs into the straddled V position Wade had asked for. When his toes were pointing towards the ground he let his hips travel down and kept his legs raised. As his hips neared the ground, his heels skimmed the mat beneath him. Peter readjusted and lifted his heels from his Stalder position on the ground, now holding himself upright with his legs spread to either side of where his arms supported his weight. Balance still had to be maintained on his hands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Press up,” Wade directed. Pressing back, Peter had to readjust again as his heels briefly fell onto the mat while he transitioned his hips from below his head to above it during the inversion process. Pulling his heels together, Peter settled into a handstand. “See?” Wade said, gesturing for Peter to stand. When he got his feet back under him, Peter frowned at Wade.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“See what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your heels keep hitting the ground. You’re still trying to do everything like you’re two inches shorter than you actually are. Now, let’s do it again.” The assessment was new to Peter. Of course he’d realized he was taller than he’d been the last time he did gymnastics, but he hadn’t thought more of it than that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wade made Peter do Stalder presses for the rest of the night, until he could do every single one tired, shaking, and dripping in sweat, but without letting his heels so much as brush the mat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Training with Wade turned out to be easier than Peter anticipated. He’d been sore after the first night, but when Bucky had him run drills on the high bar the next day he hadn’t clipped his feet once. The next week followed with a similar regime until Wade was satisfied Peter’s body awareness had caught up to his new height.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter was surprised to find that not only was Wade an astute, if strict, coach, he was also funny. Before he even realized it happened, Peter went from being combative with everything Wade told him to laughing at his stupid jokes and antics and cracking his own jokes in return. Often their evenings ended in a competition to see who could make the other laugh at increasingly ridiculous puns. Over the course of the next couple of weeks, Wade became less of a pawn in Peter’s punishment and something closer to a friend, so much so that Peter often found himself looking forward to training with the coach.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The change in his attitude towards Wade didn’t go unnoticed during the day either. Without giving Bucky a reason, Peter had rejoined the group even on days Wade coached. When Miles asked him about it, Peter only shrugged and said he and Wade had talked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Things shifted so naturally that Peter forgot Bucky and Miles weren’t going to be the only two who noticed his change of heart towards Wade. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It happened when Peter was watching Wade from where he was waiting his turn in the rotation on the pommel horse. Wade was goofing off with a group of level three girls. He went through the motions of correcting the form of a young blonde when she stumbled out of her back handspring. The girl rounded on Wade, saying something and gesturing wildly around her. Peter couldn’t hear what was said, but he recognized the challenge in the grin on Wade’s face when she finished speaking. Unconsciously, Peter’s own lips perked up in a grin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The next couple of minutes were filled with Wade doing an </span>
  <a href="https://youtu.be/3gIXWE9owMc">
    <span>exaggerated rendition</span>
  </a>
  <span> of a routine appropriate for that level of gymnast. Peter laughed as he watched Wade try to do a handstand and flop over gracelessly. He barely caught himself with his feet rather than his back, much to the amusement of the girls around him. The second handstand went better. Wade exaggerated several of the dance elements, jumping and leaping, even adding in spirit fingers once. The routine was finished with a back handspring like he’d been trying to show the blonde before. With a flourish, Wade laid across the mat, sat up, and blew a kiss. The girls surrounding him giggled and clapped when their coach stood up and held his arms out in a mockery of presenting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter was still smiling in amusement when Flash roughly bumped into him from behind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You think sucking up to the head coach is going to get you picked for a team?” He sneered. “Being Barnes’ pet project wasn’t good enough? You still need the attention of all the coaches just to feel special?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The smile fell off Peter’s face immediately, and he turned away from both the group of girls and Flash.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t get your hopes up,” Flash continued, only encouraged by Peter’s silence. “Even Wilson isn’t stupid enough to put someone in a competition who is just going to bail.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The muscle in Peter’s jaw ached from how hard he was clenching his teeth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bucky appeared then, looking at the pair of them curiously. Flash backed off, but not before whispering “This is why no one liked you at Gold West, either” under his breath.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The comments from Flash threw Peter off for the rest of the day, stuck in his own head. By the time the gym was emptying out for the evening, Peter was tense with a nervous energy he didn’t know how to expend. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Within minutes of warming up on the high bar, Wade called him out on it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’ve been running the same drills over and over,” Peter snapped, his anger channeled towards Wade like he was a lightning rod for the feelings Peter didn’t know how to deal with. “I’ve got to actually practice the skills I want to perform if I want them in my routine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Running drills is how you make sure you’re ready for the skills you want to do. You’re just going to hurt yourself like this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Unamused, Wade moved the spotting mat out onto the bar so it bumped into Peter’s hand where he was holding himself up, elbows locked and hips against the bar. It effectively prevented him from resuming any movement.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not lowering the difficulty of my routines just to compete. People already talk enough about me; there’s no way I’m going to a competition so I can be told I’ve lost my talent too. Move.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re not going to be competing anywhere if you hurt yourself.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter glared defiantly at Wade. When the older man didn't move the mat, Peter kicked at it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Move,” he repeated, tensing his fingers around the bar as he prepared to start swinging again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Wade said, holding the mat steady. “You’re trying to do a </span>
  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N9b49qIwoo">
    <span>jam</span>
  </a>
  <span>, and I haven’t seen you stretch your shoulders once with a partner since you’ve been here. Have you ever seen someone dislocate both their shoulders at the same time?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you want to keep it that way?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They glared at each other for a long moment. With a frustrated growl, Peter pushed off the bar and dropped to the floor. Performing a jam on the high bar involved placing your hands in an inverted grip and swinging backwards over the bar. As the athlete went up for the next handstand, they had to bring their feet through their arms, locked tight in the piked position, and swing around the bar once more. The move was finished by snapping the body straight and rotating the shoulders, leaving them in a forward grip at the top of a handstand. It required significant flexibility of the shoulders, and Wade wasn’t wrong when he pointed out that Peter currently lacked that. Peter </span>
  <em>
    <span>did</span>
  </em>
  <span> take the time to stretch and work on his flexibility on his own, but some of the stretches were more difficult without a partner.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pulling the mat off the bar, Wade stepped down from the raised area he’d been on to spot Peter. He looked confident in his assessment, despite Peter not having said anything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll let you try it again, but you’ve got to stretch first or you’re just going to tear something.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter glared at him again, hesitating. It was just stretching, he reminded himself, and he knew Wade would follow through on not letting him practice unprepared. The coach was unerringly consistent that way. If Peter wanted to compete again, he had to be able to perform his routines. To be able to perform his routines, he had to practice. And to practice, Wade was insisting he stretched.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Finally, he nodded. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wade directed Peter through a series of individual stretches first, correcting his form and tapping his limbs here and there when he suggested a readjustment. The stretches were second nature at this point; Peter had struggled with some of them when he returned, but there were few stretches that he had to slowly ease into anymore, especially warmed up as he was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Or so he thought. Wade directed him back into a seated straddle position, reaching forward as far as he could. Peter did so, bringing his chest close to the ground again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay,” Wade said, much closer than before. Peter tensed, and his chest rose from the ground. He looked over his shoulder at Wade kneeling next to him. Wade waited until he relaxed and reached forward again before placing a hand gently on the middle of his back and pressing. Immediately the stretch through his hamstrings intensified, and Peter made a noise of discomfort. “See? It makes a difference if someone helps.” Wade’s hand was gentle, but firm, and he held Peter in the deeper stretch for several seconds before releasing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wade then took Peter through another series of partnered stretches, surprising him with how effective Wade was despite his gentle hands. Whenever Wade would direct Peter into a stretch, he’d wait until Peter was settled before pressing or pulling, making Peter question just how flexible he actually was. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Things were going well right up until Wade was helping Peter stretch his shoulders. Peter was laying on his stomach, head turned to the side as Wade pressed his arms towards his head. It was an uncomfortable stretch, likely due to Peter’s insistence on doing moves he hadn’t stretched for, like the jam, and pre-stressing the muscle out. Focusing on relaxing into the stretch, Peter gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he opened them, Peter forgot where he was. All he could see was the edge of a sneaker and black sweatpants hanging over it. The grip on his wrists flexed in response to Peter’s arms trying to press back, to free himself from the position. Between one breath and the next, Peter’s entire body tensed, and the stretch went from uncomfortable to painful. He struggled against the hold harder, scrambling to get up the second the grip on his wrists was gone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He didn’t make it far, tripping over his own feet and falling onto his butt as he tried to breathe. He needed to go, </span>
  <em>
    <span>now</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but he couldn’t move. The air in the room felt too thick, like he was suddenly inside a sauna. The sound faded until even his rapid attempts at breathing became muffled. Dark spots crowded his vision. When he tried to speak, nothing came out. Was he drowning? Peter felt certain he was drowning, but he had no idea when he’d gone underwater.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh god, he was going to die.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His entire body flinched when a hand wrapped around his wrist. Immediately, he tried to tug his hand away, but the grip didn’t release. He heard more muffled sounds he couldn’t identify and was torn between focusing his energy on either pulling away or breathing. His palm pressed against something solid and warm, and in turn, Peter felt a pressure against his own chest. Like an anchor keeping him underwater, it made his continued struggle to breathe even more exacerbated. Peter could feel his chest press rapidly against the weight while, at the same time, there was a calm, steady rhythm under his hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The solid </span>
  <em>
    <span>ba-dum, ba-dum </span>
  </em>
  <span>continued, the only thing Peter was aware of as he struggled to breathe. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...wo, three...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The rushing in Peter’s ears faded slowly, replaced by the rhythmic pattern of Wade’s deep, repetitive timbre, until he could begin to pick out the words being said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s it, breath in-two-three,” Wade said, still holding Peter’s hand against his own chest. “Out-two-three.” As he focused on the words being said, and the steady </span>
  <em>
    <span>ba-dum </span>
  </em>
  <span>under his hand, the erratic pattern of Peter’s breathing slowed. He curled forward towards the weight on his chest, shoulders slumped and breath shaky. They remained like that, with Wade counting breaths in and out to long counts of threes, for several more minutes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Awareness crept in next. Peter’s fingers twitched against Wade’s chest when the rumbling beneath them ceased; Wade had stopped talking, he realized. Sitting cross-legged in front of him, Wade was still holding his wrist, brow furrowed as he watched Peter. Peter looked down to see Wade’s hand across his chest and saw something drip onto Wade’s arm and </span>
  <em>
    <span>oh</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he’d been crying.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He might still be crying, he realized, as he felt something slide down his cheeks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His breath hitched, and he tugged weakly at his hand still locked in Wade’s grip. Wade loosened his hold, but didn’t let go. A muscle in his jaw twitched, and Peter’s attention was drawn to how it shifted the scars on his face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please,” he breathed, barely a whisper. Wade ran his thumb softly along the inside of his wrist.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I couldn’t ride in a car for a year after the accident,” Wade finally said after a time. Peter stopped trying to pull his hand away; he hadn’t known that. Wade broke eye contact as he lowered Peter’s hand gently, shifting the grip so the back of Wade’s hand rested on his own knee, leaving Peter’s hand cradled in his palm. Pulling away would have been easy now. Instead, Peter turned his hand over and pressed his palm gently against Wade’s. The other man’s fingers curled lightly around his.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’d think I was okay, but for a while, it seemed like each step I needed to take to actually get back to driving, I couldn’t overcome. At first, it was opening the door, then it was just sitting in the car. Then I’d buckle my seat belt and have to get out immediately—and if I couldn’t get it undone in time, I’d have an anxiety attack. It would be a week before I’d try again. Sometimes, even now, when I’m driving, if there’s a really pretty orange sunset and it reflects just the wrong way into my car, I have to pull over and make sure it’s not on fire.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It took Peter several seconds to look away from where their hands were joined and make eye contact with Wade again. The gentle way Wade regarded him when Peter finally looked up brought fresh tears to his eyes; they trailed down his cheeks unbidden. There was no pity in Wade’s eyes, only understanding. Peter’s breath hitched again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We don’t get to pick our triggers.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Practice didn’t resume that evening, and Wade didn’t press Peter for details about what had happened. He just sat with Peter until his tears were dry, and he felt a little less raw. When Peter nodded that he was ready to call it a day, Wade drove him back to the house.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>------ </span>
</p><p>
  <span>After Peter’s panic attack and Wade’s subsequent admission, Peter expected things to feel awkward between the two of them. Wade surprised him by continuing to act the same as he always had. Peter almost would have thought Wade was pretending it didn’t happen at all if not for the uptick in chatter from his coach the next time he helped Peter stretch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Less than a week later, Wade announced the final list of participants for the American Cup.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter’s name was on it this time.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Honorable Mention</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“Okay, okay,” Tony said. Peter heard something clatter in the background. It sounded like Tony was in his workshop tinkering with some project or another. This was the first time Peter had called without being prompted. Laying on his bed at the house, staring at a mysterious stain on the ceiling, Peter filled Tony in on what was happening at the gym. “So you’re in the Winter Cup? That’s soon, right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No Dad, not the Winter Cup. That one is next week. I’m competing in the American Cup,” Peter explained again, unable to hide the excitement in his voice. There was more clinking of metal on metal, and then Tony returned to the call, voice clearer than it’d been.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s great, Pete,” he said, sounding happy, if not a little surprised. Peter couldn’t hear the tools anymore; Tony must have stopped whatever he was working on. Smiling despite himself, Peter forgot Tony couldn’t see him through the phone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, it’s…” He trailed off, hesitating. He </span>
  <em>
    <span>was</span>
  </em>
  <span> excited, but he was also waiting for his dad to say he’d told him so. Tony </span>
  <em>
    <span>did</span>
  </em>
  <span> like to be right. “The competition is March 7th.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Where is it hosted?” Tony asked without missing a beat. Peter let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hang on,” Peter said, rolling over onto his stomach and pulling his phone away from his ear. He pressed the speaker button and swiped through his apps until he found the browser and typed in the name of the competition. “It’s in Denver this year. I know it’s not as big as the Winter Cup...” he continued, biting his lip as he cut himself off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“JARVIS,” he heard his dad say. He sounded far off now, like he’d pulled the phone away from his ear. “Can you book a flight to Denver for March 5th, return on the 9th?” Peter could just barely hear JARVIS’ confirmation followed by Tony’s voice coming through clearly again. “I’ll be there. Are you in the all-around or just a few events?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter spent the next hour filling Tony in on everything he’d been working on and some of the new skills he’d been training in the hopes of putting them into his routine. By the time they were saying their goodbyes, Peter forgot he’d been mad at Tony for sending him to X-Force Gymnastics in the first place.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>------</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Being selected for the American Cup brought more training, both with the team and one-on-one with Wade. Peter would be competing in the all-around, and he’d been practicing as often as the coaches would let him to perfect his routines. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Two weeks before the competition, Peter was running through his tumbling passes on the floor as he worked on finalizing his routine. Most of the passes were the same as he’d competed with before he quit, but he’d been working on adding a triple twisting double back into the beginning of his floor routine. Bucky and Wade had butted heads over the addition of the difficult skill. He could do a double twisting double back easily, but adding another full twist into the pass bumped the difficulty of the move from an E, or a starting value of 0.5, to a G and starting value of 0.7. It wasn’t a commonly performed skill, so of course Peter was stubbornly insistent on leaving it in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Practicing each pass under Bucky’s watchful gaze, Peter took the corrections given to him as they came. He watched Miles do a triple twist and nod at something Bucky told him before moving to the back of the line. Peter readied himself for his turn. Although he’d already completed the pass successfully twice, as he flipped through the air this time he under-rotated his last twist. Unable to correct his mistake in the moment, Peter came down hard and off-balance on his left foot. Something gave, and Peter grunted in pain as his momentum forced him into a safety roll as soon as he hit the ground. It took a second before he came to a stop. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bucky rushed over almost immediately after Peter went down. Everyone close enough to see what had happened also stopped what they were doing and were watching Peter with a mixture of concern and curiosity. Silence filled the air. Animosity and personal feelings aside, no one liked to see a fellow gymnast injure themselves. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pain radiated throughout his ankle as Peter rolled over onto his hands and knees, determined that, if he got up quickly enough, it wouldn’t be that bad. Teeth gritted, Peter got his right foot beneath him. When he pushed up and tried to stand on his left foot, he was unable to put any real weight down. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t,” he heard as his balance faltered and his right knee buckled. He was spared the embarrassment of falling again only by Wade’s appearance at his back, catching him under the arms.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter growled in frustration, but he didn’t fight as Wade shifted under his right arm while Bucky took the space under his left. Holding his left foot up, knee bent, Peter just wanted to yell. It didn’t even matter at what.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Scale of one to ten?” Bucky asked as they tried walking to the trainer’s room, Peter balanced between them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Six,” he said quickly, breaking eye contact when Bucky’s eyes narrowed. “Nine,” he amended. Peter looked down to see his ankle was already swollen and looked like it was quickly becoming a lovely shade of blue. The three of them stumbled a step when Peter tried to hop on one foot between them and lost his balance. Even with Bucky and Wade hunched over, the tips of his toes barely touched the ground.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They stopped when Peter winced. Silently, Wade and Bucky came to a decision together.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Go call ahead to the clinic; let them know we’re coming,” Wade said. Bucky nodded once, ducking out from under Peter’s left arm. As soon as the other coach went to do as directed, Wade looked at Peter. “I’m going to carry you, okay?” Wade waited for his nod, then shifted his grip and leaned down, looping his other arm under Peter’s legs and lifting. The movement jostled his foot, and he stiffened, biting his lip to stifle his grunt. “Sorry,” Wade apologized, shifting his grip carefully.</span>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
  </p>
</div><p>
  <span>Neena stopped them just before they got out of the door, bag of ice in hand. “You’re probably going to want this,” she said, handing it to Peter. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thanks,” he said as he took the bag. He tried to smile at her, but it came out as more of a grimace.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Throughout the drive, entering the clinic, getting checked in, and having x-rays taken, Peter had been quiet and tense. Wade kept up a quiet stream of conversation, but he seemed happy to reply to himself when Peter didn’t respond. Peter appreciated the small talk and how Wade never seemed to expect any sort of response from him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Finally, they were placed in one of the waiting rooms after getting the x-rays. Peter was sitting stiffly on the table, elevating his left leg with the half-melted bag of ice on his ankle, and dripping water all over the disposable table paper that grated on his nerves every time he shifted his weight. Wade was standing, leaning against the table with his back facing Peter and his head turned so he could see him. He was telling Peter about a time he’d done a layout into the foam pit and had completely missed it. Peter was looking over Wade’s shoulder, watching the video of the mishap play on Wade’s phone and laughing at the man’s fail when the door opened.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The doctor who entered was a tall, thin man with a stern expression. He had streaks of grey in his hair near the temples. Peter thought the man might have been taller than Wade too, but with the way he was still leaning on the table, Peter couldn’t be sure.</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>“Mr. Parker?” he asked, continuing after Peter nodded. “I’m Dr. Strange.” Wade snorted, and Peter had to fight against his own smile. Dr. Strange fixed the coach with a look. “And you are?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Head Coach Wade Wilson,” he introduced himself glibly. “I’ll step outside while you talk.” Pushing off the table, Wade went to do just that. Before Peter realized what he was doing, he’d already reached out and grabbed the back of Wade’s shirt to stop him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Something wrong, Mr. Parker?” the doctor prompted, arching a single brow and looking unimpressed. The cadence of his breathing picked up, and Wade paused.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can stay,” he told Wade quietly, ignoring the doctor. Suddenly faced with being left in the room with Dr. Strange, Peter didn’t want to be alone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not your guardian,” Wade gently explained, reaching back to loosen his shirt from Peter’s hold. Peter shifted his grip from the shirt to Wade’s fingers, not letting go. “And you’re eighteen. He can’t talk to you with me here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mr. Wilson is correct,” Dr. Strange confirmed. “You would have to authorize—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do,” Peter interrupted immediately, still staring at Wade. His fingers flexed against Wade’s, only relaxing once the grip was returned softly. “I authorize it.” The doctor huffed a sigh and waited to see what Wade was going to do. Peter thought Wade might still leave, but he only leaned back against the table where he’d previously been, hand still in Peter’s. Wade had a thoughtful, knowing look in his eyes, but he didn’t say anything else.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Together they listened to the results of the x-ray and watched as Dr. Strange wrapped Peter’s ankle tightly in a beige ACE bandage while he explained to Peter how to do it himself. Wade helped Peter off the table when a nurse brought in a pair of crutches and hovered nearby while Peter took his first few steps with them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His ankle was sprained, and he’d pulled a muscle; Peter hadn’t torn or broken anything. While he was grateful the injury wasn’t worse, he had still been instructed to be off his foot for at least four to six weeks. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The American Cup was two weeks away. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter thumbed through his phone as Wade situated his temporary crutches in the back seat. He found the contact he’d been looking for and tapped out a quick </span>
  <em>
    <span>You can cancel trip. Sprained ankle. Can’t compete.</span>
  </em>
  <span> and promptly silenced his phone when it lit up with a call from Tony thirty seconds later.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His phone went off again when Wade got in the driver’s seat. Wade started the car, and then leaned back in the seat and looked over as Peter was silencing a third phone call. Peter’s phone flashed again a moment later, a voicemail followed by a text message. Clicking the button on the side, Peter turned his phone face down and stared out the passenger window.</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>“Are you—” Wade started.</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>“Don’t.” Peter cut him off sharply, not looking away from the window. Wade sighed and shifted the car into drive. Peter maintained his silence as they drove back to the gym, but Wade didn’t fill it like he had on the way to the clinic. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Staring at nothing out of the window, Peter didn’t pay attention to where they were driving until Wade pulled into an unfamiliar parking lot. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Carmichael’s Dairy Emporium</span>
  </em>
  <span>, the sign read. There was a cartoon cow on the sign, holding an ice cream cone. Peter looked over at Wade to find the coach grinning at him.</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>“You like ice cream?” Wade asked, turning the car off. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought ice cream wasn’t part of the approved diet,” Peter retorted, traces of his earlier anger still present. Wade was undeterred now.</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>“Our secret.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Before Peter had time to work up another sarcastic response, Wade was out of the car and pulling his crutches out of the back. He arrived outside Peter’s door a moment later and then opened it for him when Peter didn’t. “Come on, up.”</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>Peter sighed, unbuckling his seatbelt and ignoring Wade’s offered hand as he pushed himself out of the car and onto his good foot, using the side of the car for balance. He took the crutches, situating them under his arms, and moved away so that Wade could shut the door behind him. Peter was uncoordinated with the crutches and frustrated by the time they reached the door and entered. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>At the counter, Wade ordered a large cherry cordial ice cream. Both Wade and the bored looking teenager turned to stare at Peter. He shrugged.</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>“I don’t care, you can pick,” Peter said. Wade frowned.</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>“Nope, absolutely not. If I pick, you’re getting butter pecan, and we’re not leaving until you finish it all,” Wade declared, raising his brow in challenge.</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>“What if I like butter pecan?” Peter asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No one likes butter pecan.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I might.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine then,” Wade said, calling him on the bluff. He turned to the teenager. “One extra large butter pe—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wait,” Peter cut Wade off, making a face when Wade smirked at him. “Mint chocolate chip, please.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wade’s smirk was gone as his mouth dropped open. “Mint? That is an affront to ice cream! I can’t believe you’d eat toothpaste for fun. I should have taken you for a salad. I bet you put pineapple on your pizza too, don’t you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pineapple on pizza is great,” Peter said, corners of his mouth quirking up into a half-smile. That didn’t escape Wade’s notice either.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re a menace,” he said, but he paid for both ice creams and carried Peter’s to the table anyway. Wade waited until Peter sat down before sitting himself, but he didn’t offer to help, and for that, Peter was grateful. He ate his ice cream silently, trying to ignore Wade staring at him from across the table.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re being weird,” Peter said finally, halfway through his ice cream. By contrast, Wade had barely touched his own.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m always like this,” he replied, shrugging. “And I wasn’t entirely sure you didn’t just order that to prove a point about horrible ice cream choices.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter glared at Wade then deposited a spoonful of his ice cream directly on top of Wade’s. Making an exaggerated wounded noise, Wade pulled his dish towards himself.</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>“An absolute menace. This is the last time I take you out for ice cream.” Peter laughed, and Wade’s expression softened. “There you are,” he said, eating that atrocious bite of Peter’s ice cream.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter felt his cheeks grow warm. Suddenly finding his own bowl very interesting, Peter stared down at it as he fought against the pleased smile creeping onto his lips. Wade’s hand entered his line of vision, and Peter’s chin was tilted up.</span>
  <span></span><br/>
<span><br/>
</span>
  <span>“I know getting hurt sucks,” Wade said. “I’m sorry you have to miss the competition.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter bit his lip, grateful Wade wasn’t trying to tell him there were other competitions to be had. He knew that, but he was still upset about this one. Wade seemed to understand that. Peter nodded once. Wade retracted his hand and then dropped a spoonful of his own ice cream on top of Peter’s.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It got him laughing again, eating the cherry flavored ice cream right alongside his mint chocolate chip.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The flavor wasn’t half bad.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>------</span>
</p><p>
  <span>On the drive home, Wade told Peter this wasn’t a vacation or an excuse to ignore his strength training. As soon as Peter was cleared, Wade also promised that Peter had a spot in the next competition. Knowing that allowed Peter not to mope for too long, though he still complained near-daily about having to use crutches. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>At the beginning of April, Peter resumed training, albeit mostly work that didn’t involve landing on his feet. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter, Flash, and Miles were selected from the junior elite team to compete at the Junior Stars Classic by the middle of the month. It was a smaller competition than the American Cup in Denver had been, but it was one Peter was familiar with. It was held yearly between a handful of top gyms in the East Coast area of upstate New York. Despite the smaller scale, Peter was glad to be able to finally compete and, hopefully, make it to the competition without injuring himself this time.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. The Patron Saint of Liars and Fakes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Peter did make it to the Junior Stars competition injury free. They arrived early as a group and spent a few hours getting acquainted with the arena they would be competing in over the next couple of days. Peter hadn’t invited Tony this time, and he was glad. The tension was palpable. Exactly like when he’d first arrived at XFG, Peter’s presence was not met with open arms here. Flash delighted in Peter’s discomfort, and the other gymnast spent most of his time in the arena trying to further get under Peter's skin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It had worked, too. Despite his best efforts to ignore Flash and the judgmental stares, Peter couldn’t stop thinking about it now that he was alone. Peter was in his hotel room, pacing as he mentally performed his routines. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>What if he </span>
  <em>
    <span>did</span>
  </em>
  <span> choke again? What if he missed his floor pass and </span>
  <em>
    <span>actually</span>
  </em>
  <span> broke his ankle this time? What if he </span>
  <em>
    <span>won</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and they wouldn’t give him a medal because of what he’d done in Switzerland? Could they kick him out of the competition for that? The intrusive thoughts grew overwhelming. Peter’s chest tightened, and his breath went shallow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Moving on autopilot, Peter made his way to Wade’s room and banged on the door. He was still knocking when it finally opened. His fist stopped a hair short of hitting Wade in his chest. His very bare chest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry, uh,” Peter took a step back and let his arm drop. The coach looked like he’d either been in bed or was getting ready for it. He wore loose sweatpants, sitting low enough on his hips that Peter could make out the black waistband of his boxers, which were framed by the cut of his hip bones. Just above them was Wade’s unclothed chest. A six-pack was easily visible despite the patchwork of scars that made up his skin. “Um.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wade’s blue eyes sparkled in amusement. “My eyes are up here,” he teased. Peter felt a blush break out across his face. When he finally looked up, Wade shifted to open his door further and gestured Peter inside. “What’s up, buttercup?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shaking himself out of it, Peter stepped inside and resumed pacing around Wade’s room. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know if I’m ready.” The words came out in a rush. Wade shut the door and turned to face him. His thoughts continued to pour out unfiltered. “What if I mess up? Everyone probably </span>
  <em>
    <span>wants</span>
  </em>
  <span> me to mess up; what if they just laugh at me? Oh god, what if they laugh even if I do well? Can the judges take points off because they don’t like me? How would I even know? I’m going to lose. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Flash</span>
  </em>
  <span> is going to beat me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wade snorted at that, startling Peter out of his thoughts when he realized how close the man had gotten. Wade waited until Peter stopped moving and focused on him. Then he brought his hand to the side of Peter’s face, slowly enough that Peter could have dodged it if he didn’t want to be touched. When Peter settled into the touch, Wade brought his other hand up to join the first on the opposite side of Peter’s face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Listen to me,” Wade said firmly, pressing lightly on Peter’s cheeks to emphasize his words. “You can do this. I wouldn’t have put you in this competition if I didn’t think you were ready for it. I told you that the first time you asked me about competing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter’s blush made a reappearance. He </span>
  <em>
    <span>had</span>
  </em>
  <span> told Peter he wouldn’t put a gymnast in a competition who wasn’t ready. Those words felt like a lifeline now. Peter brought his own hand up, curling his fingers around Wade’s wrist to anchor himself. “What if everyone boos me off the floor?” he asked, voice barely above a whisper.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Baby boy, no one is going to boo you off the floor after they see you compete.” Wade sounded completely confident in his assessment. It made Peter want to believe him. Unconsciously, Peter leaned into Wade. The coach smiled softly, and Peter’s gaze fell to his lips. Had they gotten closer?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Peter met his gaze again, Wade’s thumb had drifted from Peter’s cheek to under the edge of his jaw, tilting his face up farther. His fingers tightened on Wade’s wrist. The other man leaned forward, and Peter’s breath hitched.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neena burst through the door on the other side of the room, the one that connected Wade’s to the adjacent hotel room on the other side.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wade pulled away so quickly that Peter nearly stumbled. The coach was sure to put several feet of space between himself and Peter. With a curse too low to be heard, Wade spun around to face Neena, who was looking at them oddly. Peter’s heart was racing; he made no move to turn and face the assistant coach.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If she hadn’t come in, Peter was positive Wade would have kissed him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?” Wade’s tone was short and clipped. There was a loud silence that followed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Bucky and I need to go over the plan with you one more time before tomorrow,” Neena finally said. The judgement in her tone was evident even if Peter couldn’t see her face. “I didn’t realize you were </span>
  <em>
    <span>busy</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not busy,” Wade corrected her. Doubt creeped into Peter’s thoughts at Wade’s quick dismissal. “Peter just had some pre-competition jitters, that’s all.” Disappointment settled under Peter’s skin. Taking a breath, he stood up taller and turned around, his expression playing at neutral. The way Neena looked at him told him he hadn’t succeeded. Wade’s own face was carefully blank. “You all good now, kid?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” he said quietly, glancing at Neena, who looked even more judgmental than she’d initially sounded, before fixing his gaze back on the ground. “All good.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The words sounded like a lie even to himself, but Peter didn’t give either coach a chance to call him out on it. He stepped around Wade, leaving as much space between them as he could. Retreating back to his room, Peter felt very much like the kid Wade had called him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>------</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter tossed and turned all night, and when his alarm went off in the morning, he felt like he hadn’t slept. He ate a small breakfast in his room and then met everyone else just before they left for the arena. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When they entered the floor for warm-ups, it was like walking into XFG for the first time all over again. Everyone close enough to notice stared at him, and every group they passed on their way to their designated waiting area had someone with something nasty to mutter under their breath about Peter. Worse, Wade was treating him like he had months ago when Peter had first arrived. He wasn’t hostile, but the message was clear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter remembered Wade’s words: he wasn’t special here.</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>Miles kept looking around the gym, asking Neena and Wade question after question, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Flash took the opportunity to bully Miles when the coaches left to check them in, swiftly rounding on the younger boy once they were alone.</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>“You lose points if they can tell you’re nervous, you know. That judge likes to deduct if she thinks you have an attitude,” he said, standing shoulder to shoulder with Miles like he was trying to share a secret and not harass his team mate. “And that judge there,” Flash added, pointing to a tall man in a suit. He wore round glasses and had a clean shaved face that matched his no-nonsense expression. “He’s a stickler for clean lines and handstands. You’d better hope he’s not the high bar judge.”</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>The judge, of course, walked directly to the high bar judging table and sat down. Miles looked like he might puke. Peter empathized with the feeling, even if their reasons were different.</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>“Give it a rest, Flash,” Peter snapped, rolling his eyes when Miles looked at him. “Why don’t you try winning a competition with your routines instead of by trying to intimidate your competition for once?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m just trying to help,” Flash said, shrugging. He made a face at Peter then looked back to Miles. “Whatever. I wouldn’t listen to this loser who hasn’t competed in two years, but you do what you want.”</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>Miles frowned, cracking the knuckles of his left hand with his right as Flash walked away to busy himself by his gear.</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>“Ignore him,” Peter said, smiling encouragingly. “You’ve got this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Warm-ups went about as poorly as Peter had anticipated; he took special care to avoid talking to anyone other than Miles or Neena, though many of the competing gymnasts made sure to let Peter know exactly what they thought of him being there. Even Wade wasn’t giving him more than cursory instruction on his form. Bucky might have helped, but he was stuck in the stands because of the two-coaches-per-gym rule on the floor. The only bright spot amidst the scathing commentary and glares from his competition was that Peter was hitting all of his routines, including the triple-double he’d debated keeping in his floor routine.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It didn’t stop the whispers behind his back though, echoes of his own insecurities and doubts. Hushed, harsh questions between gymnasts asking </span>
  <em>
    <span>why</span>
  </em>
  <span> Peter Parker was even at this competition; less hushed, more pointed statements about him being delusional if he thought he’d ever be picked for another national team again; and elbows and shoulders that appeared out of nowhere when he passed, knocking him off balance when no one was watching were just some of the sentiments he received.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And when they were announced by name, there was a muted air to the applause following Peter’s, which was swallowed quickly with enthusiasm as Miles was introduced immediately after him. Peter would have thought it was all in his head, if not for the way Flash smirked at him afterwards.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Their group was scheduled to start on the parallel bars, and Peter was third in the rotation. He chalked his hands just as Flash finished his routine, sticking the dismount. Peter watched Wade grin at Flash, hand on his shoulder as the head coach gestured about something. Flash looked pleased at whatever Wade had to say. Peter frowned, shaking his arms out. He needed to focus and stop worrying about Wade when the coach clearly wasn’t worried about him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter managed to focus, too, hitting his routine with only minor errors. By the end of their third rotation, Peter was walking off the floor exercise having stuck his triple-double and sitting smugly in second place, feeling like maybe he </span>
  <em>
    <span>had</span>
  </em>
  <span> been worrying for nothing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Letting himself relax even a little was his first mistake.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Using the transition time between the rotation switch from floor to pommel horse, Peter went to the bathroom. His nerves had been replaced with the excited adrenaline he remembered feeling before competitions, the excitement of seeing his name on the leaderboard, and the determination of making sure he was first at the end of the day. Today felt even more important that he did well because Peter had something to prove, not just to everyone watching or to the other gymnasts and their whispered comments, not just to Wade and his cold behavior throughout the day. Peter had something to prove to himself, that he deserved to be here and that he </span>
  <em>
    <span>was</span>
  </em>
  <span> here because he loved this sport.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Peter!” He heard his name while walking back to the arena floor. The air left his lungs in a rush, and his chest constricted when he turned and found himself face to face with the head coach of Gold West Gymnastics Academy. “Peter,” Skip Westcott said his name again, smiling at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter felt like he’d sunk into a tub of ice water, unable to draw in a single breath from the shock of cold. Skip either didn’t notice, or he didn’t care when Peter didn’t greet him back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t believe you’re competing in a competition at this level,” his old coach said, shaking his head. “I’d heard through the grapevine you were making a comeback. Why didn’t you or your father give me a call? You know we’ve always got a spot for you at the gym. We can put you into some </span>
  <em>
    <span>real</span>
  </em>
  <span> competitions, none of this silly junior stuff.” Skip laughed, like everything was a joke. Like he wasn’t the reason Peter had questioned everything he’d ever known about his place in gymnastics. Like he hadn’t made Peter wonder if he’d actually been </span>
  <em>
    <span>that good</span>
  </em>
  <span> or if he’d just been the coach’s favorite like everyone always said. Like he hadn’t made Peter unsure if he’d ever even liked the sport at all. “Look, we can call your dad, get you back to Gold West. You’ll be nationally ranked again in no time, I’m sur—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wouldn’t train with you again even if you paid me,” Peter interrupted, finally finding his voice. It wasn’t as strong as he would have liked. He curled his fingers into fists to hide the shaking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t be like that,” Skip said, reaching out to put a hand on Peter’s shoulder. He jerked back, avoiding the touch. Skip’s eyes narrowed; his smile was still there, but it didn’t carry the same friendly facade it had a minute ago. “Maybe I’ll give Tony a call, while we’re here. I’m sure he’d love to have you closer to home again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter was going to throw up, he was certain.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He won’t make me change gyms if I don’t want to,” he said, but his voice wavered as he spoke. Peter didn’t actually know what Tony would do if Skip called him personally. Peter didn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>think</span>
  </em>
  <span> Tony would make him go if he didn’t want to, but Tony had sent him to XFG when he hadn’t wanted to go either. Skip’s smirk said he knew Peter wasn’t sure, too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s so good about X-Force Gymnastics anyway?” He asked, gaze traveling down Peter’s body and back up slowly. “It’s a wonder you haven’t broken any bones there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wade respects me.” Peter folded his arms across his chest and took another half-step away. “Bucky and Neena respect me. They want me there because I want to be there and not because of what they think I can win for them. That’s worth more than any medal I can win anywhere else.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Skip laughed at him. It was startling in its suddenness.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wade doesn’t respect you any farther than he can throw you.” Skip took another step towards Peter. Peter took a step back, jumping when he hit a wall. “He respects your dad’s fat wallet, and he charges him four times what anyone else pays to keep you there, too.” Peter could feel his lungs constricting the flow of air into his body. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter’s breath stuttered, and he flinched when Skip reached out and cupped his face a little too tightly, too intimately. </span>
  <span></span><br/>
<span><br/>
</span>
  <span>“I wonder what makes you so valuable if you’re not winning anything, hm?” Skip leered, and Peter felt like he was sixteen again, at his first World’s competition. Skip, always so insistent on helping Peter stretch. The night before the team competition, Norman Osborn’s words rang in his head. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“If you wanted to get picked for the best competitions, what did you expect?”</span>
  </em>
  <span> Skip’s hand fell away from Peter’s face, and the man took a step back. “Maybe think about that, and you can have your dad give me a call.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter stayed where he was, back pressed to the wall, until he heard the announcer inside the gym do a last call for gymnasts to report.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. The Kids Aren't Alright</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Peter made it back on the arena floor with no time to spare. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He knew Wade wouldn’t take more money from Tony for the reasons Skip had implied; it was the only thing he felt sure of. But he </span>
  <em>
    <span>didn’t</span>
  </em>
  <span> know if Tony was paying more for him to go there, and that bothered him. All of Wade’s advice, his insistence Peter wasn’t there because he was special, and that he’d have to earn his place just like every other gymnast, felt like a lie. The jokes, the time spent training Peter one-on-one, insisting he only competed if it was what he wanted to do... At the end of the day, the longer Peter stayed at X-Force Gymnastics, the more Wade got paid.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neena frowned at him when he returned, and Wade reached out when he walked by. Peter sidestepped Wade’s hand, not looking at his coach’s face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought we were past this moodiness,” Wade called after him when Peter didn’t slow down or acknowledge either coach.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter took a shaky breath when he got to his bag. He closed his eyes, trying desperately to remember that night at the gym when Wade had counted careful one, two, threes with him through his panic attack, trying to remember the Wade who was gentle with him, the one who took him out for ice cream because he was pouting instead of baiting his insecurities. Counting to three in his head didn’t work as well now, but it worked well enough that he didn’t feel like he was struggling for air when his name was announced.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Covering his hands thoroughly in chalk, Peter stepped up to the pommel horse. He paused, raising his arms as he presented. His smile didn’t reach his eyes.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter took another deep breath, grabbing the handle and beginning his routine, legs locked tight as he rotated around the pommel horse. He hadn’t warmed up between events, so he was relying on the earlier warm-ups and muscle memory to get through. Mid-way through his routine, when Peter was supposed to complete a flair into a handstand, he clipped his thigh on the horse. The spectators were quiet as he landed on his feet next to the apparatus. Peter wasn’t surprised; he hadn’t even tried to stay on, and he’d lose at least a full point for that mistake.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Distantly he could hear Wade and Neena, and maybe even Miles, encouraging him to get back up and to finish strong. A fall wasn’t the end of the world, but Peter found he didn’t really care either way. He’d come here because he thought he’d wanted to compete again, because he thought he’d found a gym and a coach who cared about what </span>
  <em>
    <span>he</span>
  </em>
  <span> wanted rather than what he could provide. What was the point if he won today? So he could return to XFG, and Wade could continue to cash in on Tony’s dime?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The ten second warning bell to restart his routine sounded. Peter returned to the pommel horse, the telltale stinging behind his eyes just barely held at bay.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He swung himself back up, opting not to complete the move he’d missed. He was meant to do a series of traveling across the horse, circling around it as he moved from one end to the other. Instead Peter completed two more stationary circles, swung up into his handstand, and did a half turn into his dismount rather than the one-and-a-half he’d been training. Both moves would cost him several tenths off his difficulty score. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter looked at the judges only long enough to raise his arms in presentation, and then he headed straight towards his things, chin tucked down to try and hide his face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shake it off, kid,” Wade called from where he was watching the next athlete prepare to go, arms folded across his chest and looking utterly bored. Peter ignored him, shoving his gear into his duffel bag. He pulled his zip-up jacket on and then pulled the strap onto his shoulder. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter wanted to be anywhere but here. He’d been right the night before; he didn’t belong here, and no one wanted him here.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come on, Pete. One fall isn’t going to make or break the competition,” Wade said, turning towards him more now that he’d realized Peter was packing his things. Peter ignored him, walking towards the doors with raw determination. He made it to the edge of the arena floor, within feet of the door, when Wade caught up to him and grabbed his arm, effectively stopping his hasty retreat. “Peter, stop.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter jerked his arm away, clutching the strap of his duffel bag as he turned to glare at Wade. Angry tears rolled down his cheeks slowly, each one making its escape against Peter’s will.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t.” Peter’s voice shook. Wade’s expression twisted like it had that first night at the diner when he’d left Peter on the side of the road to walk back to the boarding house.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So what? You’re just going to walk out again?” Wade asked, shaking his head. “Prove everyone they were right about you leaving at World’s?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter’s knuckles went white around the strap, blunt nails digging into his palm.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You don’t know the first thing about World’s.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know you sure had me fooled, saying you wanted to train and compete again,” Wade scoffed, rolling his eyes. He rubbed a hand over his bald head. The sound of the audience clapping echoed around them. “Bucky too, for that matter, and he’s usually smarter than that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter stared at Wade, more tears making their escape. Of course that’s what Wade thought. That Peter </span>
  <em>
    <span>was</span>
  </em>
  <span> some kind of brat who quit because they weren’t in first place, or because they got cold feet, or because they made a small mistake. Had Wade ever seen him as anything other than that?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I guess we’re even, then.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What does that mean?” Wade asked, having the audacity to look confused. Peter laughed mirthlessly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you charge all your world-class ranked athletes four times your regular rate, or am I just </span>
  <em>
    <span>special</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter felt vindicated when Wade’s expression morphed instantly, annoyance replaced by guilt as he stood there with nothing to say. The vindication only lasted a second though because it also meant Skip had been right. It meant Wade had only cared about training him because it meant an extra paycheck. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who told you that?” Wade asked, finding his voice when Peter took another step back, preparing to retreat again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It doesn’t matter,” Peter said, because it didn’t. It didn’t change anything just because Skip had been the one to tell him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who told you that?” Wade repeated, then shook his head. He held his hands up in surrender when Peter took another step back. “Look, I haven’t lied to you. Stark insisted on paying more if I could make room for you because I told him our program was full. I thought I could use the money to help sponsor some of the kids there who have a hard time affording it and to get some new equipment in the gym. That doesn’t mean I don’t want you to be here and do well if that’s what </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> want to do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter took a shaky breath. He thought about that; it did sound like something Tony would do, but </span>
  <em>
    <span>Wade</span>
  </em>
  <span> had never told him about it before now. It had still been a secret, another decision made about Peter, </span>
  <em>
    <span>for</span>
  </em>
  <span> Peter, without asking him if it was even what he wanted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t care,” he decided. He rubbed the heel of his hand across his cheeks roughly, wiping away the moisture there. “I’m done with you, and I’m done with gymnastics. I’m tired of coaches who lie and use me and pretend it’s all for me. I never should have come back after I quit at World’s.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wade’s brow furrowed. He opened and shut his mouth, but his expression cleared as he watched Peter. Wade’s blue eyes took him in, the subtle shake in his shoulders, the way his hand was clenched around his duffel strap, even the barely contained panic in his eyes. The tension in Wade’s body loosened while Peter felt like his own might snap.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pete, who told you Stark was paying more?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It doesn’t matter,” he repeated. Peter pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, biting down to stop the trembling.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What happened at World’s?” Wade asked. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Everyone always assumed whatever they wanted about World’s. No one ever </span>
  <em>
    <span>asked</span>
  </em>
  <span> Peter what happened. Wade had never asked him what happened at World’s before either. Now that he had an opportunity, Peter found he couldn’t bring himself to answer because he </span>
  <em>
    <span>had</span>
  </em>
  <span> tried to tell someone at World’s. Norman Osborn had told him to grow up and get over it, and Peter hadn’t known for a long time afterwards if he </span>
  <em>
    <span>had</span>
  </em>
  <span> overreacted. Sometimes he still wasn’t sure. Training with Skip hadn’t always been awful.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His gaze shifted across the gym to where his old coach was standing. Skip had his hands on his hips, body turned like he was watching the athletes, but he was looking directly at Peter and Wade. He looked smug, like he knew what they were arguing about and like he was sure he’d be getting a call from Tony later that day.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter’s breath hitched. He thought he might be sick.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wade’s brow furrowed as he followed Peter’s gaze. Realization dawned quickly; Peter’s aversion to unexpected touch, his panic attack when they’d been stretching, his contrary behavior with the coaches; Wade put the pieces together himself in the silence that stretched between them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tension returned to every muscle in Wade’s body. The expression in his eyes was murderous and intent on Peter’s ex-coach across the gym. Peter was startled into action when Wade made a move towards Skip. He only stopped when he bumped into Peter blocking his path. Putting his hands on Wade’s chest, Peter pushed him back a step. Wade didn’t resist, but his thunderous gaze was still on Skip.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t.” Peter’s voice was pitched too high, verging on panic. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Am I jumping to conclusions here?” Wade’s voice was harsh with barely contained rage. “Tell me that bastard isn’t the reason you quit. If he fucking </span>
  <em>
    <span>touched</span>
  </em>
  <span> you...” Wade trailed off like he couldn’t bring himself to finish the thought. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter huffed a small, helpless, humorless laugh. Tears were rolling down his cheeks freely now that his effort was focused on stopping Wade from causing a scene.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, he didn’t get paid as much as you to make me his star athlete.” Peter’s tone caught Wade’s attention. When Wade looked down at him, Peter didn’t look away. “Whatever it takes to get to the top, right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Baby boy, no,” Wade breathed, like the pet name slipped out without his permission. He looked across the gym again, then back down at Peter. Peter’s fingers tightened in the fabric of Wade’s shirt, a silent plea for his coach not to go do whatever it was he wanted to Skip. Wade’s expression softened, and he reached out slowly to cup Peter’s cheek. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter tracked the movement, but he didn’t pull away from the contact. Where Skip’s hand had been harsh and controlling, Wade’s hand was gentle and supportive. He let Wade guide him gently forward, until he was wrapped in Wade’s arms, safe and protected. His sobs were muffled in Wade’s shirt, drowned out by the audience oblivious to the two of them tucked into the corner.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>------</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter’s tears had just stopped when Bucky found them in the same place. The other assistant coach had made his way down from the stands as soon as he’d seen Peter and Wade walk off and not return. He and Wade talked briefly, but Peter didn’t pay attention to what they said. He felt Wade’s grip tighten to tug him closer, registered the change in his tone as he said something to Bucky, and then he was silent again. When Peter pulled his face away from Wade’s chest to look, they were alone once more.</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>“Come on, let’s go back to the hotel.” He waited for Peter to nod and then guided him out of the arena with an arm around Peter’s shoulders. Peter was grateful for the contact, and it allowed him to keep his gaze on the ground. It was easier then to ignore anyone staring at him, watching Peter Parker walk out in the middle of yet another competition. At least this one wasn’t being broadcast for the entire world to see.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They ended up in Peter’s room when they got back to the hotel. Peter dropped his gym bag on the floor by his suitcase. He hadn’t said anything else since Wade had held him, and Wade hadn’t pushed.</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>“I’m going to shower,” Peter said without inflection, grabbing a change of clothes on his way to the bathroom.</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>“Is it okay if I stay in the room?” Wade asked just as Peter reached the bathroom door. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter paused with his hand on the door. There were only a few things Peter wanted to do right now, including taking shower and sleeping. Answering Wade’s questions about his history with Skip wasn’t one of those things. He recognized that Wade was asking for permission to stay because of what he’d learned. Before Wade would have just flopped himself on the bed and gotten comfortable, maybe even teased Peter. Wade was being careful, treating him with caution, and Peter hated it.</span>
</p><p><span>“It’s fine, Wade,” Peter said tiredly, shutting the door behind him quickly to avoid the follow-up question of </span><em><span>‘Are</span></em> <em><span>you sure</span></em><span>?’ He wasn’t. </span></p><p>
  <span>The water was hot when he stepped under the spray, turned up just a little past comfortable. Peter took his time, mostly just staring at the wall, thinking about everything he’d learned and remembering everything he’d been trying to forget.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he finally got out and dried off, his skin was pink. Steam followed him out of the bathroom. He didn’t bother trying to brush his hair, and it hung in haphazard curls around his head. Wade was sitting at the small desk in the room looking at something on his phone when Peter walked back into the room. He was a little surprised to find he was still there; Peter had stayed in the shower a long time on purpose.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wade looked up immediately, setting his phone down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Peter,” he started, and Peter paused. The towel he’d been drying his hair with fell to the floor as he let it go, folding his arms across his chest. Wade’s tone was gentle and cautious and Peter hated it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pete, listen,” Wade started again, a little more serious now. “I need to… Do we need to… Did he…” Wade struggled to find the right phrasing for whatever it was he wanted to say. Peter scowled, already knowing where this conversation was going.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He didn’t rape me, if that’s what you’re trying to ask,” he said bluntly. Wade’s eyes widened like he hadn’t expected Peter to just come out and say the word. “Is that what you want to know?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Wade said, then quickly amended, “No. I mean, yes, I want to know that, but that’s not what I’m trying to ask.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then ask.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Wade said, voice gentle again. Every time Wade’s voice got softer, Peter felt angrier. “But if Skip did something to you that you didn’t consent to, we should report him.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No.” Peter stared at Wade, and his tone left no room for compromise.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Peter…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I said no.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wade’s expression twisted like he was angry and trying not to be. He took a deep breath, and his face relaxed again. Peter almost wished Wade would snap at him, or even yell, instead of treating him like he was something fragile now. Peter’s jaw tensed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Whatever happened,” Wade said softly. “Whatever he did to you, it wasn’t your fault. You know that, right?” Peter balked. Wade must have seen something in his expression change because he stood up then and moved closer to Peter, stopping just before he entered Peter’s space. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Skip </span>
  </em>
  <span>is the one who did something wrong, not you. You were—you </span>
  <em>
    <span>are</span>
  </em>
  <span> a kid.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wade didn’t even know what happened, but he sounded so </span>
  <em>
    <span>sure</span>
  </em>
  <span> it hadn’t been Peter’s fault that Peter wanted to believe him. It was the first time anyone had ever told Peter it wasn’t his fault. Everyone loved Skip Westcott, though. There were awards and magazine articles and testimonies from Olympic medalists singing Skip’s praises. His gym had a waiting list a mile long. Wade might have believed Peter, but that didn’t mean anyone else would. It didn’t matter if it was his fault or not.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter shook his head again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t want to report him,” he said quietly, sounding less sure than he had a minute ago. Wade sighed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay,” Wade said finally. Reaching out, Wade’s hand landed on his shoulder, squeezing gently. “Okay. Whatever you want to do it’s your choice.” Wade waited for Peter to nod, squeezed his shoulder again, and then let go and took a step back. “I’ll call Stark in the morning and tell him he should let you go home.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not to juvie, either,” Wade clarified, thinking that was what had made Peter’s eyes go wide. “I’m not going to be a party forcing you to be here when you’ve got every reason to not want to be.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who said I didn’t want to be here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wade stared at him like he’d grown a second head. “You did. Multiple times, in fact. I think I’ve still got the tally in my Hello Kitty notebook. I can find it for you if you want—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Stop,” Peter said, rolling his eyes. “That was before I started training at XFG and met Bucky, and Miles, and Neena, and you. Before I started getting into training because I wanted to and not because I had to...” </span>
  <em>
    <span>Before I realized how much I liked spending time with you</span>
  </em>
  <span>. “I don’t want to quit. I want to compete again, Wade. I don’t know if I’ll ever get the chance to be considered for the national team after what I did, but I’d like to try. Maybe even just collegiate gymnastics. And I’d like it if you could help me do that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wade was uncharacteristically speechless. His mouth hung open slightly as he stared at Peter, who shifted his weight uncomfortably under the scrutiny. </span>
  <span></span><br/>
<span><br/>
</span>
  <span>“I’m sorry, did you just say you </span>
  <em>
    <span>liked</span>
  </em>
  <span> training?” A shit-eating grin appeared on Wade’s face. Peter scowled at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m going to take it back.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No takesie-backsies,” Wade sing-songed, shaking his head when Peter tried to speak again. “Ah-ah-ah. You said what you said. I’m having shirts made. New team uniforms. It’ll be our slogan.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wade,” Peter said, biting his lip to hide his own smile. Wade clapped his hands together, a pleased grin still on his face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, you’ve got a lot of work to do then. The national qualifier is in less than two months.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter let his lip slip from between his teeth, finally smiling. He nodded at Wade.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe things would be all right, after all.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. The Carpal Tunnel of Love</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Things were not all right.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At first, Peter thought it might have been in his head, that maybe he was overreacting. Wade was the head coach and owner of X-Force Gymnastics; he was a busy guy. So when Neena stayed behind to train with him one-on-one every day the first week after the Junior Stars Classic, Peter tried not to overthink it. Neena knew his programming and was a great coach besides. It wasn’t a big deal.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Wade no longer covered the junior elite team training on days Bucky had physical therapy, Peter figured he must have another group that needed his attention. No one else seemed bothered that Wade wasn’t coaching them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And when Peter lingered outside Wade’s office, trying to catch him after a meeting, and Wade rushed out with some excuse or another, Peter let it go.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That is, until it kept happening. Every time Peter would try and talk to Wade alone, the coach was nowhere to be found or had come up with some reason for why he needed to leave right then. Peter wondered if maybe Wade thought Peter was still angry over the fact that he’d charged Tony more, except that his dad had called him to say he and Wade had spoken and apologized for letting Tony pay more for so long. He’d even offered to pay the money back or put it towards Peter’s debt to the college, but Tony had refused. Peter had tried to stop Wade to ask him about that, too, and still he’d been brushed off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Has Wade been acting weird lately?” Peter asked Miles one day, a couple weeks after the Junior Stars Classic was over. Miles had ended up in third place, and Peter was disappointed he hadn’t been there to congratulate him. He didn’t know what Wade had told the other coaches, but so far only Flash had tried to say something about Peter walking out on another competition. Bucky had promptly dismissed Flash from training for the rest of the day when it happened, and Flash hadn’t brought it up since. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Miles had simply asked Peter if he was okay and, when Peter said he was, told him all about how he’d stuck his landing on the vault and gotten a 9.1 on his execution score, pushing him into the bronze medal spot.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not any weirder than normal,” Miles replied between sets of v-ups. They had picked a spot on the gym floor away from everyone else to work on their conditioning for the day. He looked over at Peter. “Why? Did something happen?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No.” Peter shook his head, bringing his hands and toes together as he began his next set of the exercise. “I was just wondering.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Does this have anything to do with what happened at the Classic?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Peter said again, too quickly this time. Miles laughed at him. Lamenting the loss of the kid who had once idolized Peter enough to avoid saying something that might upset him, Peter sighed. “Kind of. It’s kind of… complicated?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because you like him?” Because Miles said it so casually, Peter almost didn’t think he meant it like </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span>. “Is it not like that? I thought you guys were maybe a thing or something. You spend all your free time with him.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, </span>
  <em>
    <span>training</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Peter emphasized, looking around to see if anyone else was close enough to hear them. Thankfully, they were far enough away from the rest of the gymnasts that Peter didn’t think they had been overheard.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure, training. And eating lunch with him in his office, and leaving early from the house to get to the gym first, and staying to help him clean up after classes, and talking about him all the time. Wade told me this. Wade is so funny, do you want to hear this joke? Do you think Wade knows about that? I can’t wait to show Wade later.” Miles pitched his voice high, grinning wickedly at Peter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> sound like that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure you don’t.” Miles clearly didn’t believe Peter. “Wait, does he not know you like him?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Peter cut him off, shaking his head. “I’m pretty sure he knows.” Peter was fairly certain of that, at least.  He thought Wade might have known before Peter even realized it himself. The night before the competition, he had been so sure Wade was going to kiss him. Then Wade had found out about Skip. Wade had stayed with him that night, talking about everything and nothing until Peter had fallen asleep, and in the morning, Wade was gone. Peter hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, had just packed his bag and met everyone in the lobby, but now it felt like a sign he’d missed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh. That sucks, man,” Miles said, oblivious to Peter’s silent revelation. “I mean, I think you’re awesome. If he doesn’t, then that’s his loss.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thanks, Miles,” Peter said, but his tone fell flat. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Miles changed the subject then, and Peter was grateful.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>------</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was another week before Peter found an opportunity to talk to Wade. The gym was empty save Peter, Neena, and Wade. Neena and Wade were in his office talking about something while Peter warmed up by himself as he waited. Wade was gesturing wildly at something, though he didn’t look upset. Whatever Neena said next made Wade run a hand down his face and his shoulders sag. Then both coaches turned and looked directly at him through the observation window, forcing Peter to promptly turn around and pretend he’d been doing what he was supposed to be.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neither coach was in the office when he looked again, but Neena was waving at him from the empty viewing lobby behind the wall of windows where parents usually sat to watch their kids. Raising his hand, Peter gave Neena a half-wave back, confused. The sound of the doors opening drew his attention, and Wade walked in looking annoyed, stopping at the edge of the blue floor mat.</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Neena has a “date” she forgot about, so you can take tonight off.” From where he’d planted himself, Wade had to raise his voice so that Peter could hear him.</span>
  <span></span><br/>
<span><br/>
</span>
  <span>“The National qualifier is in less than a month,” Peter called back, standing up and brushing off his chalk-covered hands on his shorts, Peter frowned at Wade.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And you’ll be more than prepared. You’re already doing more than anyone else in the gym.” Wade folded his arms across his chest, choosing to continue yelling so that Peter could hear him rather than moving any closer, like he was keeping his distance from Peter. “You’ve already trained enough today, anyway.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I did </span>
  <em>
    <span>conditioning</span>
  </em>
  <span> today,” Peter argued. Deciding that </span>
  <em>
    <span>he</span>
  </em>
  <span> was tired of the yelling, Peter walked across the floor, closing the space between the two of them. “I was </span>
  <em>
    <span>supposed</span>
  </em>
  <span> to go through my parallel bar routine with Neena tonight.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stopping directly in front of Wade, Peter scowled up at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can do it tomorrow,” Wade said, leaning back slightly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why can’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> stay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve got to do paperwork.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Paperwork?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That sounded like a joke, but Wade wasn’t laughing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Lots of it, you know. New classes starting, new students, I’m thinking about hiring another coach,” Wade listed off, shifting his weight in between his feet. That was the final straw for Peter. He was tired of being ignored and tired of Wade finding excuses not to be around him anymore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why don’t you give Skip a call, see if he’s interested?” Peter enjoyed the way Wade’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. The vindication only lasted a second, and then Wade’s eyes narrowed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s not funny.” Wade’s tone was like ice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wasn’t trying to be funny.” They glared at each other then. When Wade had nothing to add, Peter scoffed. “You’ve been avoiding me for weeks. You told me I could stay, and that we’d train for the National qualifier. You almost kissed me the night before the Classic.” Wade grimaced, running a hand over the back of his head, confirming Peter was right about the near-kiss. It didn’t make him feel better because he knew what had changed. “I get it, okay? You found out about Skip and now I’m… not what you thought I was, but you’re still my coach, and you </span>
  <em>
    <span>said</span>
  </em>
  <span> you’d help me.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Peter…” Wade unfolded his arms. Reaching out to Peter, Wade aborted the movement halfway, clenching his fingers into a fist and letting his arms fall to his sides. A hollow laugh escaped Peter’s throat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not going to break. Maybe I’m not “innocent” anymore,” he said, making quotation marks with his fingers, “but I’m not </span>
  <em>
    <span>dirty.</span>
  </em>
  <span> I’m still who I’ve been since I got here.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Stop</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” The authority in Wade’s voice made Peter go quiet and stand up a little straighter. “Listen to me. What he did doesn’t make you </span>
  <em>
    <span>dirty</span>
  </em>
  <span> or any less innocent. </span>
  <em>
    <span>He’s</span>
  </em>
  <span> the monster, not you. And I’m sorry if how I’ve acted made you feel that way.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why have you been ignoring me then?” Peter’s voice was strained, verging on desperate. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because I have feelings for you, and I can’t!” Wade paced away from Peter then, walking back and forth with a frenetic energy. Not understanding, Peter frowned.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want you to have feelings for me though,” he said. And then, in case it wasn’t clear, he continued, “I have feelings for you. I wish you had kissed me before.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Peter, I </span>
  <em>
    <span>can’t</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” Stopping a few feet away from Peter, Wade looked at him with wide eyes. “I can’t be your coach and have feelings for you at the same time. I won’t be another Skip in your life.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Oh. </span>
  </em>
  <span>That was what Wade was worried about. The knot of anxiety in Peter’s chest loosened, and he laughed. Wade didn’t laugh with him. If anything, he looked even more startled now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wade, you’re </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> Skip.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, and I’m trying to keep it that way, baby b—Peter.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You don’t have to try, though. You’re nothing like him, and I know that.” Peter moved towards Wade.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re a kid—” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m eighteen.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“—and I’m your coach—” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t care.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“—and you don’t know what you want.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter was scowling at him again when he stopped directly in front of Wade. Without warning, he put his hand on Wade’s chest and pushed. It wasn’t hard enough to knock Wade off balance, but the man took a half-step back anyway. When Wade remained silent, Peter pushed him again. And again. And again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The fifth time Peter went to push Wade, Wade caught his hand in a firm but gentle grasp. Fingers wrapped halfway around Peter’s wrist, and Wade’s thumb pressed gently against his palm. If Peter wanted to pull away, it would have been easy. They stared at each other in a silent challenge, an unspoken “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Are you done?</span>
  </em>
  <span>” hanging in the air.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wasn’t. Peter raised his other hand to push Wade again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Again his wrist was captured in a hold soft enough to break out of. Peter watched him. Wade pressed his thumbs down against Peter’s palms, another silent plea for Peter to stop.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The grip released easily when Peter pulled his arms away. Neither of them moved.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“See?” Peter said, voice quieter now. “You’ve always respected my boundaries.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Something akin to understanding passed across Wade’s face. He looked at Peter, eyes hopeful. When Wade raised his hand again and stopped halfway, Peter held his gaze and nodded once. Wade’s palm cupped his cheek gently, and Peter’s eyes slipped shut in relief. Covering Wade’s hand with his own, Peter leaned into the touch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re not Skip,” he said again, lips brushing Wade’s palm as he spoke.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pete,” Wade said softly, still sounding unsure. Peter opened his eyes, brown meeting blue, and he smiled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know the difference between something I do and don’t want,” Peter said. “And what I want is you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Baby boy.” The nickname slipped out like Wade couldn’t help himself. He leaned forward, then paused. “Is—um—an I—” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter cut him off, squeezing Wade’s hand gently.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please kiss me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Once those words were spoken, Wade’s hesitation melted away. The distance between Peter and Wade closed as Wade’s other arm curled around Peter’s waist and tugged him closer. Going with the movement easily, Peter leaned up to meet Wade as his lips were captured in a kiss.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Sophomore Slump or Comeback of the Year</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>After that, Wade resumed the extra training with Peter most days. When Wade couldn’t be there, Neena or Bucky were. Though neither one had come out and asked Peter about it, it was clear they both knew about Skip and about Peter’s newfound relationship with Wade. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter had thought </span>
  <em>
    <span>Wade</span>
  </em>
  <span> might have told them about Skip, but when he’d asked the man, Wade said that hadn’t been the case. Predictably, both of them had each insisted Peter report Skip, and again, he refused. They had, reluctantly, not pushed further.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When the National qualifier meet came a month later, Peter placed eighth. It wasn’t as high as he wanted, but it was high enough to make it to the National Championships, and Wade reminded him that was ultimately what mattered. Going up against some of the top names in the sport, especially after having just come back from a two year long hiatus, it should have been expected that Peter wasn’t going to place first. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>------</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Training to compete at the U.S. National competition was always an uphill battle. When Peter had been selected before, he’d had to endure commentary about his age. There was a constant refrain of “He’s got the talent, for sure, but can he handle the pressure?” Nearly every interview asked him how he dealt with said pressure, or they asked if he was nervous to be competing with much more seasoned athletes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Of course, Peter had been nervous at the time, but he’d always hated that the focus was on being talented </span>
  <em>
    <span>for his age</span>
  </em>
  <span> and not just being talented overall. The emphasis on every mistake he made fell to his age or his inexperience. It had also fueled jealousy among his teammates at Gold West Gymnastics Academy, paving the way for rumors that he only got selected because he was Skip’s favorite.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was something Peter was hyper-conscious of this time around.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Since he’d come out of retirement, first at the Junior Stars Classic, and then after placing at the qualifiers, Peter’s name had started circulating in the media again. Speculations rose as to why he quit, why he returned to the sport at a different gym, at X-Force Gymnastics, of all places, and what he intended to do going forward. At best, the stories said he’d been too young and inexperienced two years ago, that he must have gotten stage fright. At worst, they called both Peter and Wade opportunistic attention-seekers, banking on the drama surrounding Peter’s name to both allow Peter to compete again and bring X-Force Gymnastics some much needed PR.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter, Wade, and even Tony had all been dodging calls from reporters trying to get a story to back up the rumors. They were relentless, and when they couldn’t get a story from Peter, they spoke to anyone who would speak </span>
  <em>
    <span>about</span>
  </em>
  <span> Peter, resulting in some unflattering articles leading up to the U.S. National Championships. Peter had tried to ignore them all, keeping his focus on doing well at the Championships and being selected for the National team once again, all while simultaneously keeping his developing relationship with Wade a secret from all but a few close friends.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wasn’t perfect though. Sometimes, he couldn’t ignore the impulse when a click-bait article came across his social media. Currently, he was reading about why the U.S.A.G. as a whole was a farce because they were humoring Peter by even allowing him to compete for a spot on the National team again. The article went on to say that the organization placed too much emphasis on certain athletes, either because they were more marketable or because they had the money to make it so, and that too many well-deserving athletes were being overlooked to make room for “freeloaders.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I haven’t even told you what we’re doing tonight. How are you possibly that angry already?” Wade’s voice interrupted Peter’s reading. Resisting the urge to throw his phone across the room, Peter looked up at Wade.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> a freeloader.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wade paused. “I know that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, apparently no one else does.” The tone was too aggressive for the situation, and Wade frowned a little at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Anyone who doesn’t know that doesn’t know </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span>, then,” Wade said, trying to be diplomatic. “And if they don’t know you, then what they think doesn’t matter.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course it matters!” With a frustrated growl, Peter </span>
  <em>
    <span>did</span>
  </em>
  <span> throw his phone then. The phone bounced off the side of his gym bag and landed innocuously on the floor. It didn’t even make a sound.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey, come here,” Wade said softly. With some reluctance, Peter got up and walked over to Wade. The angry expression was still firmly in place, and Wade reached out and poked at the wrinkle between Peter’s brows until it lessened. When Peter huffed a breath and stopped glaring, Wade pulled him into a hug. The tension in his body didn’t disappear, but Peter leaned into Wade and returned the hug anyway. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Silence surrounded them as they stood there. The embrace was warm and comforting. Wade rested his chin on the top of Peter’s head and ran one hand along his back until Peter finally started to relax. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you want to tell me what this is about?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Peter murmured into Wade’s shirt. Lips pressed to his head near his temple, and they lapsed into silence again. It was several more minutes before Peter spoke.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They’re saying I’m a freeloader and that I’m only competing at Nationals because of my name and my dad’s money.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who’s saying that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Some article on the internet.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay,” Wade said. It was clear from his tone that he didn’t find this to be as big of a problem as Peter was making it out to be. Still, he was trying not to invalidate Peter’s feelings. “I thought we weren’t reading those?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I haven’t been,” Peter said. “This one just caught my eye, and I couldn’t help it. But you know it’s not the only one saying things like that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The people who matter know the truth, though. You’re one of the hardest working gymnasts I’ve ever seen, both when I was competing </span>
  <em>
    <span>and</span>
  </em>
  <span> now that I own my own gym. You’re competing at Nationals because you earned it.”  The surety with which Wade spoke usually helped calm Peter down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They don’t really though, do they?” Peter asked, pulling away from Wade. “I can’t even tell anyone about us, or they’ll just think I’m getting special treatment because I’m sleeping with the coach. If I want to be taken seriously, I might not </span>
  <em>
    <span>ever</span>
  </em>
  <span> be able to tell anyone. Are you okay with that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter paced in time with his racing thoughts. He and Wade hadn’t even done more than make-out yet, but that’s not what anyone else would assume. Even before they’d started dating there had been comments about Peter getting special treatment from Wade. Peter had insisted they keep things a secret, and Wade had agreed. Eventually, Wade was going to grow tired of that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The answer was so short and so simple that Peter almost didn’t register it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Exactly, and how do I—what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The people who </span>
  <em>
    <span>matter</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Wade said again, “already know. Except maybe your dad, which isn’t really high on my list of conversations I’d like to have. So yes, Pete, I’m fine with it. Anyone who matters to me, or to you, knows how hard you work. They’ll know you got where you are all on your own. And as long as you know how I feel about you, that’s enough for me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When the pacing didn’t resume, Wade pulled Peter close again. Peter went with the motion easily. Wrapping his arms around Wade’s neck, Peter pulled Wade down enough to kiss him, lingering as he silently conveyed his feelings. As they separated, Peter smiled at Wade.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Anytime, baby boy,” Wade said, leaning in to steal another quick kiss. “Now. Practice?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The smile disappeared, and Peter made a face. He contemplated trying to talk Wade out of training in favor of other activities. Sensing the brewing distraction, Wade reached out and swatted Peter lightly on the ass. Surprised from his thoughts, Peter turned to find Wade smirking knowingly at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Practice,” Wade repeated. His tone left no room for argument or suggestion otherwise. With a sigh, Peter went to retrieve his things and finish getting ready.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>------</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It felt like no time at all before Peter was arriving at the U.S. National Championship competition. He was just as nervous as he’d been the first time he’d competed in it, but it was for entirely different reasons now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wade, Bucky, and Neena were all accompanying him, despite the fact that only two of them could be on the competition floor at a time and that Peter was the only gymnast from XFG to qualify. Though no one had said anything, Peter knew they’d insisted on coming because Gold West had four gymnasts who had qualified, which meant Skip was also going to be there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Also, in the stands somewhere were Tony and Miles. Tony had gotten his own overly enthusiastic greeting from Miles when they were introduced. Watching his dad react with the same surprise Peter had, though with significantly less rancor, had amused him. He’d only shrugged when Tony looked questioningly at him. Miles was the kind of person who grew on you until you couldn’t remember not being friends with him in the first place.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Preliminary warm-ups were still going on, so the arena was just starting to fill in with spectators. Finished with his own warm-ups, Peter and the coaches headed to the break room. Bucky would be joining Tony and Miles in the stands, and Peter was ready to get away from the cameras for a bit before the competition started. The four of them had barely made it into the designated area when Peter saw Skip.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Peter!” Skip called jovially, waving and smiling. Anyone around them would have thought he was just a friendly coach greeting a former student.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Unlike the last competition where Peter ran into his old coach, seeing Skip now didn’t elicit the same feelings of helpless panic it had before. Wade’s hand found its way to Peter’s shoulder, squeezing gently. At the same time, Bucky and Neena shifted a half step closer, blocking him almost entirely from Skip’s view. They kept walking. There was a silent understanding present that Peter was grateful for. Though it was still gentle, Peter could feel the tension in Wade’s hand through his shoulder, and he knew the only thing keeping Wade from giving Skip a piece of his mind was that Peter had made him promise not to do anything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ignoring Skip had been Peter’s plan, and it worked. Skip couldn’t stop them without drawing too much attention their way, and Peter wasn’t alone this time. When Skip realized he wasn’t going to get the reaction he wanted, his friendly demeanor slipped.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I see how it is... you had me, and now you've got him and two others... one coach's </span>
  <em>
    <span>special attention</span>
  </em>
  <span> isn't enough for you, huh, Park—oof!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter blinked, and Skip was on the ground holding his bloody nose. If not for Wade’s hand still guiding him, Peter would have walked straight into someone. Shaking his hand out, Bucky was back at Peter’s side a moment later. Neena moved in his peripheral vision, and the three of them made sure he kept moving along. Behind him, Peter could hear Skip’s voice rising in volume, asking if anyone had seen that and to stop them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No one seemed to have seen anything. There was only a vague confusion as to how Skip had come to have a broken nose.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As Peter opened his mouth to ask why, Neena shook her head once. No one said anything until they found a quiet corner all to themselves. Bucky was still flexing his hand, red knuckles flashing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You should get some ice,” Wade said, gaze fixed on Peter still.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m fine,” Bucky replied.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neena scoffed. “It’s going to bruise,” she pointed out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Worth it.” Finally looking away from Wade, Peter frowned at Bucky. The coach shrugged, not even appearing the least bit contrite. “Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t promise anything. He deserved that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There were a million concerns Peter had with what had just happened. What if someone had seen? What if someone had gotten a video of it? What if people asked questions about Peter’s current coaches beating up his ex-coach? What if people put the pieces together? Before he could voice any of them, Wade was, figuratively and literally, tugging him out of his thoughts. Shielded from the view of others, Peter leaned into the embrace.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s not going to say anything. He’d have too many questions to answer too. Let’s just focus on you doing your best, yeah?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With a deep breath, Peter nodded. He had a National title to win.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>------</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Almost a full year after arriving at the gym, Peter and Wade found themselves standing outside of the large building that read NYPD on the side. They had been planning this trip for a while, but after placing third in the U.S. National Championship and being selected for the Senior National Team again had made it hard to get here because Peter’s time was solely dedicated to being in the gym and training.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wade and Peter had returned to the city for the week, staying at the penthouse Tony owned. It had taken a long time and a mountain of assurance for Peter to get to this point. Many people had offered to go with him for support, but in the end Peter had only allowed Wade and Tony to come.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now that they were here, though, Peter found himself hesitating.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Beside him, Wade slipped his hand into Peter’s and squeezed gently. Tony’s hand covered his shoulder on the opposite side, warm and reassuring. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You only have to do what you want to do,” Wade reminded him. Since they’d first kissed, Wade had been Peter’s biggest advocate, even telling Tony to back off when his father had insisted he was going to take matters into his own hands after the U.S. National Championship meet. That had been an exceptionally emotional argument, but eventually, Tony had come around. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter had talked about all his hesitations more times than he could even remember. What if no one believed him? What if they asked why he hadn’t reported it years ago? What if everyone just thought he was looking for attention? There was no shortage of reasons Peter had for </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> wanting to put the spotlight on himself this way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But another question had begun bothering him more... What if he didn’t report it, and Skip did it to someone else? What if he was </span>
  <em>
    <span>already</span>
  </em>
  <span> doing it to someone else?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter squeezed Wade’s hand in return, turning his head to look at Wade. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know. I’m ready.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Taking a deep breath, Peter let go of Wade’s hand, stepped out from under Tony’s hand, and pushed open the doors, entering the station a step ahead of the other two. It was a minute before someone spotted them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can I help you?” asked the woman who approached them. She was Asian, shorter than Peter and had a no-nonsense air about her. Her black hair was pulled back into a neat ponytail, not a stray hair in sight. There was only a brief, assessing glance at the two men behind Peter, and then her attention was back on him. He nodded.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My name is Peter Parker, and I’d like to file a report.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>More thorough description of the trigger warnings: Skip Westcott was Peter's old coach. It's implied heavily throughout the story that he sexually abused Peter in some fashion when Peter was a minor. The specific details aren't mentioned, but it follows Peter throughout the story. Peter deals with panic attacks, as well as feelings of wondering if it was all in his head or his fault somehow, which is common in victims of such abuse. Skip features a couple of times in this story and has no remorse for his actions, further tormenting Peter. There is a definite imbalance of power. If any of that is a trigger for you, please read with caution.</p><p>I chose to include that in my story because sexual abuse in the USA Gymnastics has been a huge focus lately. It was discovered when "Athlete A," now known to be <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/gymnast-maggie-nichols-was-first-report-abuse-larry-nassar-n836046">Maggie Nichols</a>, anonymously filed a report against <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/1/19/16897722/sexual-abuse-usa-gymnastics-larry-nassar-explained">Larry Nassar for sexually abusing her</a> under the guise of medical treatment. This triggered a huge chain of events and many, many women coming forward with similar claims. Everyone who knew Nassar spoke of how kind he was - this is common in abusers and it made it easy for him to hide for so many years. USAG has been accused of trying to hide what was happening as well. Maggie Nichols was not the first person to report this type of abuse, and <a href="https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/2020/06/24/larry-nassar-usa-gymnastics-scandal-still-ripples-four-years-later/3232953001/">USAG chose to handle it "internally"</a> rather than reporting Nassar to authorities. There is also a strong history of the coaches associated with USAG emotionally abusing the athletes by pushing them too hard, forcing them to be perfect, etc. </p><p>I strongly recommend watching the documentary "<a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/81034185">Athlete A</a>" on Netflix if you'd like to learn a little more about this. Many Olympians have spoke or released statements on the matter, including <a href="https://time.com/5020885/aly-raisman-sexual-abuse-usa-gymnastics-doctor-larry-nassar/">Aly Raisman, </a><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mckayla-maroney-says-she-tried-raise-sex-abuse-alarm-2011-n867911">McKayla Maroney</a>, and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Bd_C55cHWUQ/?hl=en">Simone Biles</a> (among others).</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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